Role | Sound/Prop Designer
Team Size | 5
Duration | 2 weeks
Class | Building Virtual Worlds, ETC, Fall 2017
Challenge | Create a narrative experience
Platform | C.A.V.E
Overview
Alex’s Wonderful Adventure is a single-player coming of age narrative game about a little witch, Alex. It is told in the beginning that her grandma is sick and a magic elixir could help save her, if found. Alex, a novice witch and broomstick flyer, sets off on an adventure to save her grandma. As the story progresses, the challenges get harder but Alex gains more confidence in herself and is ultimately able to find the elixir, saving her grandma.
Design Process
Our platform was the C.A.V.E., so for our experience we wanted to be able to utilize the immersive surrounding environment as well as the pneumatically-controlled platform. Given this challenge, we chose to make a broomstick flying world and centered our conflict around a little witch scared of flying. An old desk chair was taken apart and retrofitted to create our broomstick prop. Some challenges were faced with the stiffness of the spring in the chair and the comfort for the guest, but solutions were found by iterating the design until a prop we could use was created.
Using a long plank for the broomstick to sit on created a larger moment about the spring, allowing for the up and down movement of the broomstick to be more satisfying. EVA foam was used to make a more comfortable seat for the guest and holes were cut out for the guest’s legs to sit more easily. A PlayStation Move controller was attached to the end of the broomstick to interface with Unity and control side-to-side as well as up and down movement in our world. Two buttons on the remote were used to accelerate and decelerate the player.
