Eunmin Lee, Joshua Sterner, Cheuk-Hang Tse, and Kenneth Ven
June 2021
We started the quarter by brainstorming and building a cross-reality collaboration application idea, which led to a game called “Puzzle Speed Run.” The game’s main goal is to test the players’ collaboration and puzzle-solving skills by timing how fast their team can decipher various puzzles. We built many features for the game, such as the VR/PC player, the lobby, control panel, and various puzzle mechanics.
The lobby is where players can select their team and choose which level they want to play. The lobby will instantiate the selected level once the host player clicks the start button. The Control panel is a user interface that allows the player to select its mouse sensitivity, check the game’s controls, check on the timer, exit the control panel, and quit the game.
Puzzle mechanics such as button sequence, ball on a track, laser redirection, and color pattern were brainstormed and built during the project. Each of the mechanics was designed differently to better test how well the players can collaborate with their teammates.
Our project consists of three levels: Easy, Medium, and a bonus level. Each level incorporates a bit of every puzzle mechanic that we prototyped and demonstrated during our weekly presentation. However, the medium level only has the color path, and the bonus level only has the ball on track puzzle. Throughout this quarter, we had four playtests. The playtests helped us realize the manipulation issue with our mechanics and modify the manipulation into what was preferred for the game. We used the feedback from the demos and the playtests to decide what to incorporate into the final version. We also tested if the level’s difficulty reached our expectations.
Finally, the playtests helped us to test the completeness of our game with ASL. By building those features, we allowed the players to collaborate to solve puzzles together while having Virtual Reality and Personal Computer in the same environment.