The Signal
Summary: Explore an uncharted planet to uncover a mystery.
Engine: Unity
Programming Language: C#
Length of Development: 3 Days
Number of Team Members: 1
My Team Role: Solo Game Developer
Introduction:
In September of 2021, I participated in the Area of Effect Jam, which began on the 24th and ran until the 26th. My goal for this jam was to create a game that captured the essence of the jam's theme, which was signs of life. For this jam, I chose to do a VR game, as I've worked on a few VR titles leading up to this jam, and had a lot of fun making them. The end result was a satisfying immersive sci-fi experience.
Day One:
On the first day of the jam, I immediately began conceptualizing several ideas for the game. Based on the theme, I knew I wanted to do a sci-fi game, as that was the first thing that came to my mind. After bouncing back and fourth between several ideas, I ultimately settled on a game where you explore a planet in space to uncover a message coming from somewhere in outer space. Once I settled on the idea, I drew a concept sketch to get a rough idea of what the planet would be like, as well as the beacons that the player would need to activate as they traversed the planet.
I also began to set up the project in Unity, which involved importing both the XR Interaction Toolkit and the XR Plugin Management, both of which I've used in previous Unity VR projects. I then reached out to a sound designer and composer named Michael Wittenberg to help with audio. Finally, I imported two assets, a space skybox by Pulsar Bytes and a series of rock textures from Rob Luo, one of which would be used for the planet.
Day Two:
On the second day of the jam, I began to put all of the pieces together. First, I established the XR rig for the game scene, as that is where all of the interactions would take place. I then enabled the player to warp around the scene so that they can traverse the planet in places where they can't just walk to. Next, I made one of the beacons and added a trigger that would cause it to light up when the player touched the button. I added a plane to test out the XR interactions, and once that was working smoothly I subbed it out for a sphere that I would use for the planet. I then added a rock texture to the sphere, as well as the space skybox (which was truly a sight to behold). Once all of that was done, I then placed beacons around the planet for the player to activate. By this point, Michael had completed all of the sound effects for the game, and I added them into the project. At that point there was just a few things left to do before the game would be ready.
Day Three:
On the final day of the jam, I began working on the dialogue that would appear once the player activated all of the beacons. Once it was finished, I created a dialogue script that would load in the message one line at a time based on a coroutine, and had it display in a text field that I placed in the world environment. Michael had composed two music tracks, one that would play when the final beacon was activated, and another that would play as the message appeared. I added both these tracks in the game, and placed the audio files where they needed to go. Finally, after a couple of playtests, the game was ready and I published it to itch.io just in time for the deadline for the Area of Effect Jam.
Post Mortem:
Based on the feedback from playtesters during the rating period for the jam, there were a couple of things that could have been done better. First, some people got lost trying to find the beacons, so having a navigation feature would be a must add. Also, the gameplay came off as a bit too simple, so I would definitely add some more interactivity to them, such as having the player enter a code to activate it rather than simply pressing a button. On the bright side, people really loved both the score and the message at the end. Overall, I really enjoyed working on this game, and would love to be able to expand on this in a future iteration.
Game Designer & Developer