Summary
This title aims to bring players of different age groups to play an experience that allows for multiple levels of engagement. To achieve this, Hash It Out is built as an asymmetric experience bringing together VR and mobile players. Also, the game is constructed around the mechanics of well-known games of drawing and guessing, but providing more tools than just the classic pencil and paper, such as shapes that are modifiable and “air-drawing”, making an approachable fast paced hilarious experience. Designing a multilingual game, remote multiplayer, accessible from any mobile or VR device, while providing content creation tools can be challenging and extremely exciting to develop!
Challenges and Innovations
- Technical
- Multiple VR platforms
- Vive and Oculus
- Multiple mobile platforms
- Android and iOS
- International inclusion
- East Asian, Arabic, Latin
- Network reliance
- Sync, matchmaking, drawing, figure modification, guesses
- Mesh Modification
- Vertex and Edge modification
- Real life interactions
- Buttons
- Grabbing and Throwing
- Doors
- Pulleys
- Multiple VR platforms
Creating A VR asymmetrical game with mobile companion app is equal to developing and designing two
separated games, a mobile and a VR game!
To achieve a well-rounded asymmetric experience, every technical front that is being targeted must be developed in parallel to allow producers and developers to test the interactions between the different players.
In order to do so, the team divided into two pods. One pod would be focusing on the VR interactions and the second pod would be developing the mobile design.
In order to do so, the team divided into two pods. One pod would be focusing on the VR interactions and the second pod would be developing the mobile design.
Different VR system Dev packages can be challenging to integrate.
While Unity eases mobile development on different mobile systems, the packages available for VR proved to be a difficulty for the team, as the interactions and logic behind them were not smoothly exchangeable. Even though the desired interactions were the same and testing the user experience could be done on one VR system, developers needed to be testing and tuning mechanics for Steam and Oculus separately. Therefore, the team would focus efforts in one VR system and create a list of interactions and tag areas of code that needed tuning or presented difficulties on that system, which then eased modifications and target the same interactions on the other system.
Networking Networking Networking!
It was crucial to develop the structure that would allow for the interactions of both sides to be transmitted in a reliable and efficient way. The only way to achieve this is through the network, which made parallel programming even more important as the mobile players need visual indications of the position and interactions from the VR player, and vice versa.
To tackle this, the network team used the Photon Engine as a base on which the events could be transferred. Some of these events are syncing game states and transitions, mobile guessing, power-ups and emotes, and VR “air-drawing”, board drawing, shape expansion and modification.
To tackle this, the network team used the Photon Engine as a base on which the events could be transferred. Some of these events are syncing game states and transitions, mobile guessing, power-ups and emotes, and VR “air-drawing”, board drawing, shape expansion and modification.
Targeting a wide user segment including non-gamers was one of the crucial design challenges we faced.
The game had to be designed in a way that facilitated first time VR users to adapt quickly to the gameplay and the space.
Therefore, the team decided to design the space and the interactions with the environment to replicate real life actions. So, the team needed to do extensive research and testing on what players were doing and expecting from the actions on the hardware and software. By conducting several QA processes and external testing with several age groups, the team kept modifying the interactions and the arrangement of the space, in order to encourage players to use the multiple tools in the space.
Therefore, the team decided to design the space and the interactions with the environment to replicate real life actions. So, the team needed to do extensive research and testing on what players were doing and expecting from the actions on the hardware and software. By conducting several QA processes and external testing with several age groups, the team kept modifying the interactions and the arrangement of the space, in order to encourage players to use the multiple tools in the space.