Research pt. 2
Next I started to look at other mediums that presented had some type of experience that could be considered a museum, and this is where I looked outside the box, metaphorically speaking
Considering the understanding that I’ve come to in order to make this prototype successful I need to consider the methods of immersion that are readily available to me which willl be the key to designing a great VR musuem which keeps the players engaged and allows them to really embody ‘human presense’.
The Stanley Parable Musuem
For those unfamiliar, this indie title was very interesting because the only action the player really has is to interact with objects and move around, but the level of narrative story telling is what made this game’s design exceptionally interesting. With the easy controls anyone is able to play it but the game is all about choice and require audio to be available (although subtitles will read out what the narrator says). Just before the player makes a choice the narrator will echo what will happen and depending on the players choices will start to directly interact with the player which is evident near the beginning of the game. For example, the narrator will talk about ‘Stanley’ in the first person and then as the player is reaching a room with two doors the narrator then goes along to say ‘and Stanley went about his day on making his way to directors office with the door on the right’; you can change that and make ‘Stanley’ go on the door to the left instead which will change the outcome of what the narrator will then say. With each choice, the narrator will change what he or she will say which is a direct reflection of what is happening in the environment as i you are changing the narrative of a book in real-time.
Now regarding what this has to do with the project, if you reach a certain string of choices, the player ‘Stanley’ will reach a museum based around the game you are playing with artefacts such as the level design, some cue card explaining choices made during development as well as using the simple interaction mechanic to allow the player to interact with buttons which play different audio cues.
The reason why I think this was good research material is for a few reasons:
This is the benchmark of a virtual musuem and provide insight into basic interactivity that is neccessary.
The museum journey for the player allows free movement in the environment and each artefact is numbered so you know which order to go which is the intention of the general game’s theme. It gives insight to the level design of the museum as well as the level design of the actual game.
With each number there is a little text inserts explaining each artefact with some vague details which is present in IRL applications of current museums and their exhibits.
Overall, even though this is small section of the game itself, The Stanely Parable really set the basic benchmark for what a museum in a virutal environment needs and relaying it to VR applications for this project could consider these as small details that need to be for the prototype, such as the level designs, themes, the user journey, interactions and sensory information (audio and visual cues).
Mortal Kombat ‘The Krypt’
This particualr example is fairly different, because it isn’t a museum at all, but does have those type of tendancies which could be applied to general design principles. In this case, the focus revolves around the gamified elements that could be implemented to deliver an educational experience with the inclusion of Level Design.
The Krypt in Mortal Kombat, introduced in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was a tool that was objectively different to what most fighting game were doing at the time, allowing players to unlock new Fatalities, costume and also design artwork of characters, now interestingly, because of the fact that you collect and can view these artworks by a technicality you can consider this a gallery of the development of the game.
Finish Him!!!!! TECHNICALITY. Sorry it had to be done
Anyways, as the game progressed into Mortal Kombat 11, the players are still able to do this, although not something the conventional player would consider mainly to get the unlockables for the game, with this insight in general being considered a gallery we can look into it further as these concept artworks are considered artefacts.
Although these artefacts are an afterthought, the core idea would be to look at the interaction and the progression of the Krypt. It has a puzzle based progression where you have to find a specific item to help you progress through the map to other sections of it with the inclusion of audio and visual cues to help the player decide the initial direction of where to go in this free-roaming virtual environment. Another thing which was interesting is that the player earns these rewards by investing their in-game currency and finding it like it’s treasure.
This could be interesting to add to this project, but the focus would be in regards to the Level Design mixed with the in-game currency. I don’t plan for the players of this virtual VR Museum to pay money at all (unless it becomes an official product than that is different), but in-game at least there could be a way to utilise this puzzle based progression with points, to mix with the earning and learning method as a means for gamification and immersion-based interactions.
Night at the Museum
Now you could argue this could be the basis of my whole research, which I would disagree but the more important subject regarding this film, is the scene with the introduction of the T-Rex’s living skeleton in this film. As funny and silly as this scene in the film maybe, it does bring up some interesting insight in general, whereas in the previous pieces, the player was the one who had to interact with the objects.
In this example, the question would arise is how can we make the object interact with the player, or at least what artefacts in this VR virtual museum need to have a direct influence on the player?
It can lead to a lot of various examples, as with the current design idea I wanted to player to interact with an artefact that would transport the environment to a game-like state for which is relative to the artefact so maybe we can twist in another method where it be the opposite, that the artefact could be a big scary skeleton of a T-rex and once it bites you, the player is transported to the time period as a T-rex and has to hunt down food as the objective. It allows the design for this Virtual musuem to present a different understanding of what interactions can really be influenced on the player.