THE BELIEF OF A NEW WORLD

Designed and Made by: Ruby, Tara, Sophie, Michelle

This AR experience provides a glimpse into the imagined world of the future where our purpose and meaning to life are contrived by the products of our own creation. The pivotal point in rediscovering our origins liberates us once again in our understanding of self and humanity. In the two rooms, the player can undergo these changes by being immersed in the imagined narrative of our future. 

Space 1 - The Belief to Life and The World 

Cell, Life, Vision

The concept of life in the future world is gradually blurred, and most of the mechanical objects are used to replace life itself. The purpose of the concept in the room is to reawaken human beings and think about the process of conceiving life, forming life, living in the world, and finally seeing the new world with two eyes.

Space 2 - The Belief to True Self and The Emotional Expression 

Color, Emotion, Expression

Because of the high development and mechanization of the future world, human beings want to evolve themselves to a higher form. But during this period, personal thoughts and emotions gradually disappear, leaving only a high level of technology. The precious thing about human beings is that they have deep and complex feelings and thoughts that machinery cannot experience and understand. The core here is to return to real life and the true self as human beings.

Development Blog

- The development process overall

The development process went through several stages of revision and redirection but the final outcome still resembles our original concept. In the first stages, we considered themes such as the human spirit, colors, emotions, and faith, and ways we could abstract these ideas in AR. Once we were able to decide on a theme and narrative, we were able to break down the logistics and specific mechanics inside our game. We also wanted to explore something more experimental, hence the AR format instead of a traditional gaming experience. We referenced a lot of surreal game designs, specifically Love death & robot: Zima Blue in our initial brainstorming phases. Once the main narrative was established, our workflow was a lot more productive. 

- Design docs, development images, notes

Format: AR (experience-based)

Style: Surreal Future 

Concept: 

In the future society, human life becomes subject to the command of technology and mechanization, and the initial elements of humanity gradually disappear. But as human beings, we cannot forget the origin of everything: the emergence of the cell, then the formation of life, then the enrichment of thinking that gives rise to our faith and hope. The concept of religion becomes obscure. Human beings gradually rediscover the original, the most primitive faith, the faith in life and thought, and the most genuine self. 

Game Flow: Player enters the space -  room1 - room2

Concept Logic Flow:

From the initial emergence of life forms - collecting DNA, the origin of life - putting them inside the baby in the womb - triggers animation + next stage 

> Produces a rich structure of emotions and belief, rediscovering our true sense of self and hearts The sublimation of ideas gives us a vision of hope

Final Goal: Finish touring the space, rekindle with our origins, emotions, and our humanity. A player achieves the sublimation of self-dimension in the final universe in space.

Design: Subliminal, space, universal, ethereal colors. Collecting items that coincide with the room designs - obscured human body infused with technology. 

2 Rooms (with different types of future Beliefs Ritual):

Room 1: Life, Cell, Vision (the belief in life and the world)

Main Game Mechanism: Collecting DNA, exploring the formation of life 

Room 1 Assets: Cells, DNA, fetus, hands, some sort of veneration statue, microbes, human figurines, abstracted womb with the fetus

The concept of life in the future is gradually blurred, and most mechanical objects replace life itself. The purpose of the idea in room 1 is to reawaken human beings and think about conceiving life, forming life, living in the world, and finally seeing the new world with two eyes.

Room 2: Sentience, emotion, expression (the belief to our true self, emotional expression)

Because of the high development and mechanization of the future world, human beings want to evolve themselves to a higher form. But during this period, personal thoughts and emotions gradually disappear, leaving only a high level of technology. The precious thing about human beings is that they have deep and complex feelings and thoughts that machinery cannot experience and understand. The core here is to return to real life and the true self as human beings.

Game Mechanism: Collecting the essence of ourselves

Room 2 Assets: human + mech (cyborg), ethereal surroundings, essence balls that represent emotions/knowledge, human hearts

- Playtesting feedback

We weren’t able to get a lot of playtesting feedback since our project was site-specific and we were all communicating online instead of working together in person. We were able to show our video trailer to some people and this was the feedback: 

• The image and designs are very immersive and pretty to look at
• Had trouble knowing what to tap/collect
• Lack of transition between spaces/direction - more clear indication would be helpful
• Novelty is a plus 
• It would be nice to experience it without it being site-specific, or even in a more immersive platform/on a bigger screen 
• The stages of slowly discovering and exploring the environment is well done, creates a sense of narrative and autonomy 

- Successes (What went right)

The narrative and story/logic flow of rediscovering our humanity in the future of mechanization unfolded well in our design and concept. We had a strong narrative we’ve decided on and we were able to represent the plot well through visual elements, sound, and the AR format of the experience. We were able to create a cohesive and immersive environment through designing assets, lighting, and sounds that were immmersifying for the user. Another success was branching out from the traditional format of games in taking on the challenge of making something inside AR. The consistent thematic elements and color story created the feeling of revelation that we had aimed for. Because of how the cave/room was designed, the visitor was able to discover the environment at their own pace while having the time to enjoy the experience completed with interactive objects and animation. 

- Failures (What went wrong)

Our original design consisted of 3 rooms, which then went down to 2 due to time constraints. These two rooms were designed inside unity but only one was tested successfully with our environment. We were able to create the second room with all its elements completed but however, in the testing period, the AR scene wasn’t working with our camera and we weren’t able to complete the second part of our story. Although we were able to accomplish the AR experience with our first room, the second room wasn’t able to sync up with the environment. Another shortcoming was transferring textures and materials from 3D software to unity and there were a lot of flipped normals to clean up. 

- Lessons Learned (What did you learn from your failures or how did you overcome them)

Testing with AR taught us ways we can take advantage of the tools inside unity and how we can create a more immersive, interactive, and unique experience for the visitors of our created space. We also learned that we should have managed our time better since a large part of the allotted time was spent developing our ideas into a story, which was all made harder by Zoom and meeting online. However, through Unity Collaborate, we were able to cohesively go into our file to work together. We’ve also learned how to implement and test with different lighting, animation, and material making inside Unity to overcome some of the trouble we encountered. 

- Future Development (If you were to continue working on this game how would you improve it)

For future development, we would like to keep testing our second room to complete the entire story of the experience. Another improvement would be to put time into making a cohesive UI that matches our theme, and including an introduction and ending page to the experience since right now it is only tested on one device. Through further distribution, testing, and feedback, we can implement improvements in different elements that could make the experience stronger and more impactful.