Development Process

headspace is a walking simulator focused on the theme of liminal spaces. Liminal spaces are these transitionary physical spaces that fall under the uncanny valley; like a school without children or an office space with no furniture. The player is to walk around aimlessly through a series mood-evoking spaces at a slow pace. Through the course of the development process I compiled assets and materials, imported everything and assembled it in Unity. It was developed as the final project for Core Studio Lab Objects over the span of 3 weeks.

Design Documents

Presentation Powerpoint

Gameplay Trailer

Postmortem

Successes

Based on the final playback and overall work I was successful in achieving an eerie and nostalgic mood. The most successful room was the church scene, and I think that it really evoked some cathartic feelings. I also figured out how to get a lower resolution filter over the game to give it a PS1 feeling, coupled with using the inspector to lower the max image resolution to the 100 - 300 range. 

Setbacks/ How I Overcame Them

There were a lot of setbacks that occurred during the project, the first being my lack of knowledge of 3D Modeling. I have some basic experience but not to the point where I could have designed an entire game world around it. To alleviate this I ended up using premade models from packs and other online resources while retexturing them/changing their materials. I modeled and rigged a 3D character and was also planning on having fixed perspective styled cameras implemented, akin to the old Resident Evil scenes. There was a problem with how the rigidbody and colliders were working with the model, though, so at the last minute these cameras broke. I had to switch gears and use a first person camera controller instead in order for the game to be salvaged. The last part that wasn't able to be implemented were the games puzzle. Unfortunately I didn't find a workaround for this but I plan on fixing it in future developments.

What I learned

I learned that I still need to practice and learn more about 3D Development as I am accustomed to 2D Development. My goal had been to prove that I could accomplish something of a large scope by myself. Looking back I realized that this was a mistake and it's okay to admit that working in a group may have been more beneficial. In a group setting you're able to work to your strengths and not stress over not understanding how to do a certain portion of the project that isn't assigned to you. Having a project outline is great but no matter how prepared you come into something you always need to allow yourself to be more flexible, and to not be a perfectionist by scraping things out that aren't 100% what you envisioned mentally.

Future Development

In the future I really want to make more of my own models and expand my knowledge on 3D Modeling, and I already have plans on focusing on that over the break. I hope to make a full-fledged game in this style incorporating puzzle mechanics. Incorporating sound also would be super beneficial to attribute to the game's ambiance. My goal has always been to fully realize a horror game of this scope so I'll continue to work hard on that.