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Orthogonia

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Trailer

Trailer

Details

Details

My Role: Designer (Level, Puzzle, Audio)

About: Orthogonia is a 3D VR puzzle game where one must solve 3D nonogram puzzles in order to restore life to the futuristic wasteland and return it to its former glory. This project was part of the spring 2021 Exploring Virtual Reality course, an interdisciplinary course offered by Steve Kolbe from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film and Chris Bourke from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering. Computing students and Emerging Media Arts students team up to produce Virtual Reality experiences, tools, games, and other media.

Software: Unity

Total Production Time: 2.5 Months

Release Date: May 6th, 2021

Platform: VR (Windows)

Download: 

Contact Gabe for Download

Resposibilties

Responsibilities

Designer

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  • Level / World Designer

  • Puzzle Designer

  • 3D Voxel Modeler

  • Audio Designer

The reward for completing Orthogonia

Level / World Designer

I was in charge of creating the world environment that the player traverses within Orthogonia.

This task required me to:

  • Develop a baseline understanding of Unity

  • Model the world terrain out of voxels

  • Model all necessary environment assets


I learned how time intensive environment art and modeling can take, but how rewarding it can be to see the world come together at the end of development.

Puzzle Designer

I took responsibility for the creation of all "nanogram" puzzles within the core mechanic of our game.

Some of my contributions included:

  • Researching nanogram puzzles in 2D and 3D

  • Drafting and prototyping 20 puzzles

  • Iterating and improving the puzzles for the final game


This was my first introduction to pacing the player through puzzles, which gave me a solid starting point to build off of before I entered the SMU Guildhall.

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Audio Designer

Our game required lots of various sound effects such as an ambient music score, environment sound effects, and voice over audio to give the story its narrative.

Some of my contributions included:

  • Writing the music for the game

  • Designing environment / player sound effects

  • Casting and recording voice over talent for narrative


This process gave me a strong understanding of not just the workload required to bring game audio to life, but the impact it has on the finished product.

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An excerpt from the script developed for the voiceover

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The overview of the world terrain

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Before and After of the puzzle: "Fox"

Retrospective

Retrospective

  • Working on a multidisciplinary team

  • Adjusted well to new tasks (game design, 3D models)

  • Created an engaging and fun VR experience with a strong message attached to it

  • Some of the puzzles are a lot of block removal, and not a lot of thinking involved

  • More time could have been spent on making the world landscape look more varied

  • The game is fairly short - about a 35 minute playthrough

What Needs Improvement:

What I Learned:

  • It requires good art, scripting, design, and production to make a fun game

  • How 3D game editors function

  • Following strict schedules of deadlines

What Went Well:

Gameplay

Gameplay

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