Space Escape (Unity VR) Portfolio Section
Space Escape is a VR exploration game in which you use only your hands to traverse around a broken space station and reach the escape pod. The fact that you have to push and pull yourself around the level leads to plenty of tense moments in which you need to reach a safe spot to hide while lasers pass you by.
Space Escape Development
This was my first big VR project. In this project, I was the producer and Core programmer. I lead a team of 3 other developers. The development process was not smooth sailing, however. I had to deal with many GitHub merge conflicts, and when it came time to add the level to the repository, the repo. completely broke, so we had to make a new repository.
Feel free to play the game with this link.
Two GitHub repos linked: Original, and Level Priority. The original repo has the original code pushes, and the level priority repo has the final product.
Production
As I just mentioned, there were quite a few source control issues I had to deal with. I learned how to deal with conflicts because I just decided which branch to merge different aspects from. different branches. In the end, when we added the physical level we made a new repository completely.
Movement
I spent the majority of my time on this project perfecting the movement system. When you grab an object that allows you to push/pull yourself around, your hand locks onto that object's position and allows you to pull it closer or push it away, thus allowing you to move.
Layers/Collision detection
There were three different layers I worked with while making this game. These layers helped the hand controllers decide what to do when contact with made with an item on one of these layers:
Push/Pull Navigation layer
When the grab button is pressed on the controller while you are in contact with an object on this layer you will be able to move the camera by moving that hand around. The player will move as if they were actually grabbing that object and pushing/pulling themselves around.
Death Layer
When a hand or the camera comes into contact with something on the death layer, the player is teleported back to the start. However progress is kept between deaths, so after pressing the first button, death still allows you to open the second door.
Button Layer/Events
Once a door is unlocked, you are able to press a button on the door to trigger an animation that will open the door. I programmed the doors and the buttons to trigger this animation when pressed. The buttons also have a simple animation triggered when you come into contact with them.