Climate Destroyer VR
For our final project in ICS 691, I teamed up with two other classmates to create a game that took advantage of the benefits from Virtual Reality. The result was our game Climate Destroyer VR and it was created with the intent of allowing the user to perform unethical actions without being punished. In addition, using a VR device like the HTC Vive gave us the opportunity to immerse the player in a way made them feel like they had superpowers.
My role for this project was to map the controllers and create the dynamic environment. Using Unity to map the Vive controller input was difficult at first because it required a decent understanding of physics and using some of Unity’s physics functions. After some trial and error, the button mapping of the controllers were figured out and I could then move on to creating the dynamic environment. As the player continues to have fun littering and damaging the environment, we wanted to somehow give a visual cue to show the players actions being effective. As a result, I used Unity’s fog settings to increase the fog density in relation to the number of points over time.
From this project, I learned that creating a controversial game like Climate Destroyer VR is risky, but could give you insight on the ethics behind making games. Regardless of the type of entertainment, there seems to always be a set of boundaries that would backfire if the creators of the product are not aware of it.