This game is sort of a continuation of my attempt to get better at developing in unity, scripting in c# and trying to get more efficient at pushing an mvp out.
This is among the first projects I started with an organized plan of making a public build of the game as soon as I could. This along with careful planning with what free time I had, I was able to make the build (while a bit janky in its own way) still playable. From the build to the page info and graphics all in about a months time of moonlighting if I recall correctly. That’s my best record yet for making a prototype.
You can download the latest build of the game here!
Influences
The major influence for this game was Marble Madness, specifically for the NES. I guess this is also continuation of a similar theme to the retro revamp jam. I eventually found out that there is actually quite a few games with this theme of controlling a marble in an obstacle course.
Mission goal
For this game prototype I wanted to primarily do two things (and within a deadline); Firstly to experiment with triplanar materials in unity. I figured if I could find a way to use this, I could quickly make levels with basic meshes or 3d tiles and I wouldn’t have to worry about UV wrapping as much as I would before, cutting a lot of time for asset making.
Another goal was to understand the scene management system that is built into VRIF. After playing a couple of indie Nintendo Switch games, I quickly realized that there wasn’t much fancy magic in tying a game experience together. I used the first Super Mario Bros. as inspiration here and made a similar system and a straight forward way to tie levels together for myself.
Should the player beat the level, it goes to a scene that reads the level the player is now on and then goes to that scene after a timer. It’s almost exactly like smb1. This way I can focus on making the types of games that are
Things I wish I could have known/done
Now with the possibility of using eye tracking, I would love to be able to implement that as the main control scheme for this type of game but alas I am more stuck to other financial responsibilities than buying a headset that supports this feature hahah
Another thing I wish I could have done or implemented was a small way to control the camera a bit. Currently, the player’s view is pretty stuck to where they are currently and sometimes, the player can sequence break the level, leaving the vr player’s camera position in a super inconvenient location relative to the marble. I’ll probably fix this sooner rather than later.
I’ve gotten a few downloads for this game and a bit of feedback that matches the feedback with my in person play-testers so I’ll be working on those things when I finish up or get burnt out from crunching on another project lol
Arcanus Cella Games 