Finale, Presentation and Reflection
Let’s not look at this as a conclusion of the project as a whole, maybe look at this part as something to consider if moving forward with the project having the possibility to get an actual establishment to work with me on this rather than just saying “We don’t mind if you structure it based on us” but anyway for this being my final year project it does have loads of potential to go further, but for now let’s look at it from two separate standpoints: analysis of the game and personal learning outcomes.
Analysis of the Game
When looking at the game as a whole, to be a perfectionist as a Game Designer would be something that unfortunately I fit into, sometimes I really want things to work as intended, but we move from here. Really and truly to make this experience to be more fulfilling to the intended design outcomes, there is a lot of Polish that has to be put into the game, from a basic standpoint there are still elements that haven’t been implemented, mainly gameplay and animations, UI that would make the experience smoother for the casual user, smoother textures, and more rooms. This is the just the general standpoint of how things should be implemented, the actual list however is very big, but that is the inner perfectionist in me.
Again, the problem with the product so far is that there is no polish and it’s very basic in it’s execution, which I know as a Game Designer, that is okay, I just wanted it to be better. One feature that is definitely a miss although was the game has no main menu, now this could be considered a design decision where the game automatically fades into the museum and the Museum itself is the main menu, which is something I did consider, but without having a main menu, I wasn’t able to test the reception of the preference, but either or would be fine. But I do have a list of nitpicks which I feel would have made the prototype look more feasible, and this is some of them below:
Line Renderer with the VR Hand Controller in bends when clicked Action to move is clicked on
Implementation of the actual games would have been good or at least the Race of the Buses one would have been great
Animation on VR Hand Controllers to make it feel more real
More random animations for NPCs in the environment to make it look as an convincing crowd
Having the dedicated Exploration Mode and Interaction Mode to make it easier to interact with objects so players only need to focus on that one method of interaction at a time.
Personal Reflection
Well one thing that was very good about this whole experience was learning a lot about VR game design and development as a whole and it’s not easy, from both sides as with the design possibilities delves deep into the users experience and you have to take a lot of considerations for that alone on top of choices for how the game will work, because even though it opens up possibilities, it’s also very limited because of the problems it faces against the end user, although that didn’t stop me from learning how it works at least in the Unity Engine. The one thing I can really say is that there is a lot of support for it on the Unity Game Engine with many tutorials and helpful forums to get past this initial hurdle from a technical standpoint.
Design-wise VR development is still pretty interesting and for this Museum to be an immersive experience, it had to be done in first-person which is the common consensus for VR games but even for this experience offering gamified elements, source material had to pay a part in the design of the games, but ultimately the idea lead to the all of the VR games making the player static, but that didn’t mean the environment could do the moving for the player instead which was the main method I thought of to counter the problems of a less interactable game (that’s at least how I could describe it technically).
Though this project did come with some problems along the way, where communication between any establishment was minimal, which could be a fault on my side too. Ultimately, the art of time management was the key, although I did eventually manage to get in contact with the London Transport Museum, the frequency of communication between us did take a lot of the schedule which meant a lot of information I could only gain for private use and obviously leads into some legal stuff which I feel could have been mitigated much sooner if communication was better, but this was during the time when was unsure how to proceed with the project. Also when producing the prototype I started pretty late only giving myself a little bit less than a month to produce something working which also played a part into a lot of elements not being implemented. so really a truly because of these two factors leaning into my own personally time management skills was the issue. I’m normally pretty good at having a ‘can-do’ attitude towards my work without having any documentation of planning, however, to mitigate this issue in future I would consider making a detailed plan (at least even on paper) as a step-by-step guide in what I would need to do next. By doing so, it would make sure that I’m deeply organised to a fault leaving not much room for error except for technical element, although again I never normally have this as an issue.
Finally, I already understand that the London Transport Museum isn’t interested in a product such as this, hence why this is better left as a framework to follow and the end result here being a passion project, because yes, I love history and like trains too. This leads my own curiosity where the idea has much potential, it just needs to find the correct suitor who will see the spark and understand the value it could bring. Ultimately, it’s for Museums, but it can cater to other types of establishments as well if settled into the right hands (cough cough, me being a Game Designer). Alas, just need to find the funding from the right people basically which is that I can learn from this.
Presentation
Finally I delivered a presentation accompanying my project report, one thing that isn’t stated here is the title of the report which is where I wanted to consider this as a pitch, but below is a video slideshow of the presentation I delivered, although it lacks my actual speech, I feel the concept comes out pretty well visually even, so give it a look if you like to.
Next Steps
From here that’s wrap on the reporting of it, but I can see this going somewhere and considering the amount of work placed into this project it would be a shame if it was just stuck in the back collecting dust. An establishment could really use this to boost their traffic in general as for one, it’s something new, and two, it’s something that has had some similar uses, but never really made available to public perception, just something for white paper testing. For now it’s just for find the project to go into the right hands, again I’m not tied to a specific establishment, The London Transport Museum only stated I can use their stuff for educational purposes and in this case I’ve learned I can make this a good product. The framework is concrete and works, only thing that would need changing if placed in the correct establishment is the Mini-games and Level Design, which still takes work, but having a framework makes the rest a little more tangible.