Everything In Modification

Project Context

This project was created for the EPIC-WE research project funded by Horizon Europe. It was conducted as part of my studies in digital design and was therefore required to include an element of XR. The entirety of the project spanned roughly 2 months. It was conducted as an extended gamejam with the goal of making cultural games. Our team was made up of 5 students working with roles such as Art Director, Programmer, Narrative Designer, etc. I held the dual roles of programmer and game director.

A thorough development log can be found on the games itch page.

March 21st - 28th 2025

Phase 1 - Experience

The initial planning fase. The team was introduced to danish art history, which had to be a greater part of the project. Based on this we had a brainstorm on culturally relevant questions. We structured these according to common themes such as propaganda or laziness.

From this we selected the theme of art as propaganda and generated game ideas for this theme.

Phase 2 - Play

The second phase was concept development. We had to fulfill multiple criteria with the project, that we tried to iron out. The week concluded with a pitch for cultural partners and industry veterans. The experts liked our concept and narrative themes. However they urged us to be more specific in our choice of art, and gameplay loop. It was reinforced that we should be aware of the way the game was going to be presented. Giving the presentation context was a convention with players only having a couple of minutes we were advised to make a polished 3 minute game experience.

April 4th - 11th 2025

Phase 3 - Imagine

Phase 3 was to make a low fidelity prototype of the game. We decided to make a physical mockup of our core gameplay loop and performed our test as a wizrd of oz test. Where we acted as the computer. Our decision to make the mockup physically came from our game being a vr game, which converted well into a physical format.

From our test we found that the test user acted and reacted how we wanted them to. The felt animosity towards our narrator and regretted doing as the narrator instructed them to. We got possitive feedback on some of our game design decissions such as having a concrete script. We also were told to try and increase awareness around the feeling of helplessness, we were trying to convey. Our biggest take away was getting the script right both to emphasize the tone of the game and the voice of the narrator.

Phase 4 - Creation

The final phase was the development phase. As the director I made a shedule akin to a flowchart in order to visuallize what different parts of the game needed before it could be implemented. The process was separated into mini phases. Giving us time to put everything together at the end. This ended up not being suboptimal, but not every memeber of the group was familiar with unity and even fewer had experience with github or unity version control.

We had some annoying bugs and had to do a bit of crunch up til the final presentation, due to extra responsibilities appearing during development (producing materials for our convention booth).

Concept development

VR game for EU research project.

Goal

Problem

Solution

Project Context

March 21st - 28th 2025

Phase 1 - Experience

Phase 2 - Play

March 28th - April 4th 2025

April 4th - 11th 2025

Phase 3 - Imagine

Phase 4 - Creation

April 11th - May 9th 2025