oculus rift

/oculus rift

The Private Eye- Case Files was an Oculus Rift game entry for the VR Jam 2015 competition. It is a diorama based game, where the player sees the environment he/she is about to explore from a birds-eye view. I got to work remotely on the game, together with a the team in England, for which we were one of the finalists.

/Concept

The Private Eye Case Files utilises the power that VR has to give players an unparalleled feeling of presence in interactive storytelling. Transporting you back to the early 60s through detailed art and music design, to create a realistic and ambient noir aesthetic.

This is a house where every item conveys meaning whether it’s a character's fears, quashed ambition, a secret love or an intent to kill. By blending cinematic narrative and aesthetics we aim for a state of presence that lies in familiar environments and everyday objects and actions, creating experiences which can be easily related to and embodied.

This gripping noir mystery is delivered through intricate environmental storytelling and suspect interrogation that utilises a unique interactive questioning system.

The central game mechanic rests on you investigating each room of the manor for clues which will help you piece together the intricate back-story to the victim’s death. The twist here is that you can assess each room from a bird's-eye vantage, spinning it around as a diorama from your office.

As you discover investigation areas within the house, you can transport yourself into the room for closer inspection. This game plays with your sense of presence and time as you constantly switch perspective from your god-like, conceptual view, to a first person perspective inside a scene in the murder house, as you carry out your investigation.

Here you can search for clues and inspect these closely, getting snippets of to help you piece together the bigger story from old forgotten belongings.

Evidence which is found to reveal crucial points in your investigation can be used in the questioning of your seven suspects. You also have the ability probe them on their answers if you believe they may be with-holding information.

Again, the concept of time is bent here, as your discoveries affect Sam's questioning of the suspects, which takes place the day after the crime-scene investigation. As you investigate the scene and choose to interrogate suspects on the items you find, you hear the tape recordings of your future conversations from the interrogation room.

In the fashion of all great exploration games, to progress with your investigation you will also need to find and use items within the scenes.

On this project, my primary task was to design the environments of the game, creating immersive interiors for the player to feel as if he/she was in the 60s. Having created the layout of the ground and first floor of the mansion, I then tackled each individual rooms. I sketched them (as illustrated below) in 3D perspective to give depth to the ideas and the items in each room.

Each of the designed spaces were passed on to the 3D modeller to create the environments virtually.

I then looked after some ingame contents such as collectibles the player had to pick up to progress in the game. Featured below are a couple of the ingame mansion plans. The style which it was represented was to give a 'used-paper' feel and when ever the player had an achievement, it was shown on the plan.

/ The Trailer

For the VR Jam competition submission a trailer was created to showcase the basic attributes of the Virtual Reality game. CLick the play button below to start the video.