This video demo was recorded by Ruxin. It shows the entire flow of the game in detail, including the main game mechanics, the narrative part and the exploration of each room to solve the puzzles.
Author: Bohan Chen
Game Flow, Narrative Script and Level Diagram
Level Diagram Final Version
I drew up floor plans of all the rooms (levels), using different shapes and colours to represent the information within the game’s level map for subsequent development
Mind Map Final Version
After I further sorted out the mind map, I got the final project game planning document, which contains the core gameplay of the game, different game mechanisms for each room, narrative script, and the entire game process.
4.1 Update Version
I’ve been working on the narrative part of the game with my group members (Ruxin and Zhaoyi) and so far we’ve completed most of the narrative structure and the whole story flow, we’ll refine the details further if we have time.
3.30 Update Version
According to the new gameplay mechanism, the game mechanism in some scenes has been modified, and the ending screen in some scenes has been added to make the whole story provide a stronger sense of substitution.
3.27 Update Version
Based on our meeting and discussion today, I have summarised and collated the completed room environments and gameplay for subsequent development and documentation.
3.23 First Version
I’ve briefly listed the narrative parts we discussed at Monday’s meeting and the flow of the game about my own room, while for the other rooms I’ll refer to everyone’s blogs to populate the document if I have time later.
I have also provided the original brain map file from xMind if anyone would like to edit the contents of the room themselves.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14jUNTHpsTBNFtiRWmffXV-ZjafzWViah/view?
Reference
https://dream.ai/
Brain Puzzles
Based on our previous discussions about the narrative idea and the presentation of the labyrinth pieces, I found an image that fitted and by using Photoshop I split it into eight pieces for our subsequent sections.
Ref: https://www.pngsucai.com/png/8516579.html
Game narrative and flow (Old version)
3.30 Update Version
According to the new gameplay mechanism, the game mechanism in some scenes has been modified, and the ending screen in some scenes has been added to make the whole story provide a stronger sense of substitution.
3.27 Update Version
Based on our meeting and discussion today, I have summarised and collated the completed room environments and gameplay for subsequent development and documentation.
3.23 First Version
I’ve briefly listed the narrative parts we discussed at Monday’s meeting and the flow of the game about my own room, while for the other rooms I’ll refer to everyone’s blogs to populate the document if I have time later.
I have also provided the original brain map file from xMind if anyone would like to edit the contents of the room themselves.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14jUNTHpsTBNFtiRWmffXV-ZjafzWViah/view?
Alzheimer’s research
In response to the story context of the project, I came up with the idea of Alzheimer’s disease and conducted research and studies on it. Using these studies as inspiration, I came up with some ideas for refining the context of the project.
Including:
- Thoughts about the shape of the memory pieces and what they would look like when put together
- An extension of the game play based on Alzheimer’s
- The game narrative context as well as the story line, I have proposed two different contexts and ending narrative designs that I hope to discuss later.
For more details please refer to my brain map file.
Late Childhood (Adolescence) Room Improvement
3.28 working on adolescence room models
Adolescence Room Concept (Improved Version)
Due to the model collision problem after the room model provided by the original team members was imported into UE, the player could not enter the room. After the team meeting, I further refined the original concept of the room, recreating the model of the room to represent the life stages of adolescence.
Firstly, the room adopts a wave-effect back room style to reflect the instability and insecurity of this period. In my opinion, adolescence is a crossroads in life, with multiple choices and a sense of confusion. Now let’s talk about the game design of the room. When the player enters the room, it is pitch black and they need to use the sound exploration function to search for three hidden items in the room. These three items correspond to three different life paths: sports, art, and science. Once the player selects any of them, they can unlock the corresponding memory photos. This also indicates that although there is instability at this stage, there are still multiple possibilities to explore. After unlocking, the entire room will become bright, which also represents that once you find your direction in life at this stage, you will be wholeheartedly devoted to it.
For gameplay design purposes, I added models to the other rooms to make them more relevant to the game.
Adolescence Room Iteration
3.20 Update – Import into UE 5 and conceptualise and implement the
Gameplay
//Mind map TBC
Schematic diagram of the scene
Room Concept
This room is a Late Childhood stage, which means goodbye to childhood, so the first thing I associate with is school/classroom/classroom. But the room also contains deeper memories of grief, as the player explores the items in the room, linking seemingly unrelated items into a complete story through the questions on the board, in order to get to the hidden pieces of memory in the room.
Gameplay. The chalkboard will act as the main interactive object in the room, giving the player different tasks by switching between different texts. The player will need to explore/search the room for what they think is the correct answer and place it on the podium, if the answer is correct it will unlock the memory associated with the item and finally by stringing all the memories together the player will be able to find the final memory fragment.
Basic classroom without texture 
Basic classroom with texture
Late Childhood Room Iteration
Reference
Texture Ref:
https://polyhaven.com/a/laminate_floor_03
https://polyhaven.com/a/concrete_wall_003
https://polyhaven.com/a/wood_table_worn
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Paper003
https://polyhaven.com/a/plywood
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Metal038
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Wood068
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Fabric008
https://polyhaven.com/a/denmin_fabric_02
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Metal043A
https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Plastic006
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Plastic008
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Metal008
https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/solid-painted-concrete-wall-textured-backdrop_16245979.htm#query=chalkboard%20texture&position=14&from_view=keyword&track=ais
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Write_Your_Story_Blank_Lined_Notebook_Paper_Creative_Commons_(4812267249).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EliseuVisconti-CD006-P%C3%A1gina59.jpg
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=OfficeCeiling002
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=WoodFloor039
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Plaster001
https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Tiles002
https://minecraft.novaskin.me/skin/5693463031/backroom-texture
Tutorial Ref:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ll-QMGPTyg&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8pbdYnFEvk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlhUgRxwg0I&t=1873s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrhS0075Qls&t=276s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6oKBVRaLLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ3MUQYR7ok
Room Theme Concept (Part 7)
Room 1 Light and shadow switching room
Keywords
Childhood memories, growing up, change, breaking the mirror
Narrative design
This room may have once been a toy room for the player or others, but in the present the owner of the room has grown up, so the room is rarely entered at present. The two states of light and dark represent the two states of this room, one where the person used to stay as a child, and the other represents the dark state of the room when the person grows up. It is also hoped that the story of the main character will lead the player to discover the truth of this room. The owner of the room has encountered problems with his parents’ divorce in this room, which has left the room untouched for years, and the photos that the player has to piece together are childhood memories of the owner of the room, fulfilling the owner’s desire to go back to when his parents were still together. This could also be the break-up of a friendship.
Gameplay design
The gameplay of this room involves the player collecting hidden items in a room with alternating lights, which switch every 30 seconds. The items in both the dark and light rooms are the same, just in different states. The light rooms are clean and tidy, while the dark rooms are dusty. Players must make the most of the switch between the dark and light rooms to collect items while following clues to find different items hidden in the room and combine them to unlock the room’s hidden secrets, such as broken photos or toys. The style of the rooms is based on a childhood story. Half of the photos are in the light and dark rooms and the player will complete the game by combining them together.
Basic Demo
Room 2 Visual Dislocation Room
Inspiration
Key words
Visual confusion, Dreamworld (Inner World)
Concept
“Your eyes deceive you, what you see is different from what you actually are. ”
Narrative design
This room is owned by an elderly man with Alzheimer’s disease who often has trouble remembering things, and because of his age it also often looks at objects that are sometimes large and sometimes small. This room contains two of the most precious memories of the old man’s life, one of his family and the other of his friends. The misalignment of objects in the room also represents the misalignment of the old man’s memories due to his illness.
Gameplay design
The player enters the world as the old man usually sees it. All objects become larger or smaller depending on the player’s interaction, tricking the player’s eyes into seeing a different size than the actual object, and the player needs to manipulate the size of the object in the correct location. The player needs to find the correct position to discover the most important memory of the owner of the room (this can be two objects / or one object, such as a painting, but with different content in different locations) in order to pass the game.
Room 3 Emotional Detective Room
Key words
Emotional feedback, Case resolution
Narrative design
The conclusion of this case was a suicide. The owner of this room was a child with autism. This room is the sanatorium where he stayed and where his parents trusted the promises of the sanatorium and placed him in foster care for treatment, but in reality, the sanatorium did not cure him and his parents did not visit him after they sent him there. And, as many of the items carry emotions from the different stages of his life before he committed suicide, the player needs to find the truth about what really led to his suicide. The player will discover that the ultimate reason for his suicide was the truth about the death of the only friend he knew in this sanatorium, and the recorded phone calls of his parents who actually tried to abandon him.
Gameplay Design
The player enters the room and interacts with different objects in the room that carry different emotional reactions of the owner (which can be detected by the lights and sounds of the objects). The player has to find objects in the room that are related to the case and eventually deduce the murderer of the case in order to put the owner to rest. Objects in different stages have different emotions, so the player has to find out which objects are key to solving the case and sort and order them to put them together correctly in order to reveal the truth about the case.
Room 4 A room in a forgotten time
DMSP “Rubik’s Cube” project idea testing demonstration
Based on the ideas we discussed as a group, I created a test scenario in unity to consider the possibilities of implementation. This is a one-way transmission mechanism with only two rooms, an initial implementation
2.9 Further iterations of the project idea today
-Three rooms and two portals have been added
-The room shown in the portal is different from the actual portal destination
– The rooms are divided into blue, yellow and, at the very beginning, grey, with two portals in each room. Each portal renders an interior scene of the other two rooms depending on the player’s location. However, when the player passes through the portal, the location of the teleportation is not the room as the player sees it, which needs to be used in conjunction with the sounds that follow
Current issues:
1. As seen in the video, when the player approaches a portal in one room, the camera also renders a view of the portal in another room, which can cause confusion for the player.
2. The display screen of the camera’s render plane crosses to the outside of the room at certain locations, as the position of the camera in the room needs to be adjusted to correspond to the player’s position, so the position of the room setup becomes quite important, especially if there are 27 rooms to be set up afterwards.
3. When the teleportation occurs, there is a frame where the whole screen is flashing grey before the teleportation occurs, I tried to place the player in that position and eventually found out that it was because the player’s camera had passed through the wall of the original room a second before the collision occurred
2.13 Portal 3 Room Demo For Sub1
I made some changes to the scene to fix the previous problem.
1. I set up a collision detection mechanism to determine if the player is in the current room. When the player is in the current room, the portal in the room will only show the image rendered by the camera, and when the player leaves, the image rendering of the portal will stop, so that when the player sees another room from one room, it will not show the rendered image of both planes.
2. I adjusted the position of some cameras and collision planes, which reduces some problems during the portal through the model, but there are still some planes that have this problem during the portal.
Code explanation of function implementation:
Camera Follow
This part of the code is to make the camera set in another room follow the player’s position, and the portal is the base point to get the player’s offset value so that the camera moves to the corresponding position.
Some of the commented code in this section is intended to investigate the rotation of the camera following the player’s view, where quaternions are used to obtain the corresponding rotation angle, but it did not show good results in tests, so it was not applied at this stage, but as a direction for future research.
Camera Render
Shown here is how to use code to manage the image rendering material for multiple cameras. As the current camera tracking script does not implement rotation with the view, it is necessary to set up multiple cameras with different angles. Image rendering showing the plane of another room is achieved in this way.
Player Detect
This is a simple script to determine if the player is in the room and when the player leaves, the portal will stop rendering the image.
Teleport
This is a teleportation script that determines whether the player has crossed a plane by calculating the distance between the player and the door when the player collides with a collision body set up by the portal, and teleports to another place when the player crosses the plane, where the offset value of the rotation angle is also calculated by quaternions so that the player does not turn in another direction after teleportation.
The next plan:
I am going to optimize the camera’s player following logic, currently the camera can only follow the player’s movement, after that the idea is to be able to follow the rotation of the player’s head, but I have encountered a lot of problems when dealing with this part, as shown in the comments of the code, I have done some research on this part, but it is not working well at the moment.
Reference:
Mini First Person Controller
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/mini-first-person-controller-174710
Portal Tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuQao3hEKfs&t=1282s
Game Research and Thought
Game research
This game is in the horror-adventure genre and features a blind protagonist who takes on its role to uncover the secrets hidden in an abandoned house.
The game features a visual effect of sound as the world is seen through echoes. Each time the player solves a puzzle, the environment of the scene in which they are located changes.
This is a VR game is narrative driven and features the same exploration of the surroundings through echolocation. Here the player can use props, such as the game’s walking stick, to emit sound waves, which allow them to temporarily see the outlines of objects.
Some ideas for the project
Audio-based navigation
Players will use sound cues, such as footsteps, echoes, and audio landmarks, to navigate through the world. The sound will be placed in specific locations to guide players and help them avoid obstacles.
For example, players may hear their footsteps getting louder as they approach a wall, indicating they should turn in a different direction. The sound of a door creaking may indicate that a player has found an entrance to a new area.
Sound-based puzzles
These puzzles will require players to listen closely for clues and solve challenges using sound. For example, players may have to listen to a series of beeps to identify the correct sequence to open a door, or they may have to listen to echoes to locate a hidden object.
