Over the past few months I’ve been studying with Udacity to learn VR software development. The course has been great so far, so I thought I’d share a little of what I’ve been up to with a game called “Puzzler”.

About Puzzler

Puzzler is a simple VR experience for Google cardboard. Basically anyone with a phone and a $15 cardboard headset can give it a try. The game has a simple UI where the user is thrust into a dungeon, where 5 magic orbs present a puzzle. Successfully playing a single round of “Simon” gets the player out of the dungeon to victory.

Here’s a brief video of the “final” version of the game:

The process

Of course, I didn’t just wake up one morning and build this thing. There is quite a process to go through to create a good VR experience. As I mentioned on this blog before, a good process can make all the difference when you’re building for someone that isn’t you. Which, let’s face it, is almost always.

The approach taken for this work was no exception so let’s break it down a bit.

Statement of purpose

I started the process by creating a simple statement of purpose for the game:

Puzzler is a mobile VR app which gives new VR users a quick taste of VR via their existing smart phone. The entire experience should take no more than a few minutes and be accessible to most anyone that's physically able.

With this in mind, I selected the nearest available human to be a test subject and personify my ideal target audience. My 6-year-old daughter Emma was the winner on the day. When starting out the build, first I documented a little about her, so I had a clearly defined outline to work too. Here’s the persona for Emma:

Persona

Image:

Name: Emma
Age: 6
Role: Child
VR Experience: Has played a few simple VR games, but not many
Quote (that sums up their attitude): “Can I play with your phone thingy, it’s cool.”
About this person: Emma is an enthusiastic VR user, she loves to explore and have adventures. She’s young and enjoys content that's exciting and interesting, but not too scary or intimidating. She will ask lots of questions and enjoys the discovery. I think it's fair to say she has moxie.

With a clear purpose and audience/persona defined it was time to get going with an initial design and an “alpha” build of Puzzler.

Concept sketches

I started by creating a bunch of really nasty looking sketches for what puzzler might look like. And when I mean nasty I mean nasty.

Here are a few concepts I had for the game initially:

My thinking with the above designs was my audience is young. Given that, it was better to use a large simple UI that could be easily understood and a very simple scene design that wasn’t overly difficult to understand. Once I sketched out something I was happy with I then took the designs and built something in Unity.

User testing

With the first cut done it was time to get going with user testing. It’s so important to get an early version in front of your audience to test assumptions. My early tests were really all about determining the basics, like the scale of the scene in relation to the subject.

Basically, from there on it was a process of iterating on the project. A mix of making assumptions, asking questions, and testing it all as often as was practical. To give you some idea of the things I asked, here’s a few of the Q&A sessions I had with Emma:

User test 1

Me: How big do you think you are in this scene?
Emma: I feel a bit smaller, normally I think I’d be taller than that barrel. I feel little.

Me: What’s the mood or atmosphere of the environment?
Emma: A bit spooky, but I like the purple balls. Not too scary, there are no witches, I don’t like witches. It’s a bit bright for a dungeon though.

Me: Is there anything you find difficult to see, or anything visual you think could be improved?
Emma: No I can see everything, but I can’t hear anything should I be able to hear things?

Conclusion: Emma picked up on the spooky dungeon, she was feeling too small so I adjusted the player's height slightly. I moved the orbs to be closer to the player since Emma liked them so much. I also added some sound to the environment.

User test 2

Me: How big did you think you are in this scene?
Emma: I think it's right. I'm the right height.

Me: What’s the mood or atmosphere of the environment?
Emma: Spooky, the sounds are spooky, it sounds like night time. It’s a bit dark.

Me: Is there anything you find difficult to see, or anything visual you think could be improved?
Emma: The balls are too close to me. I feel like I’m going to bang into the balls.

Conclusion: Emma feels the right size now, but I think the scene is a bit too spooky for her now and the orbs are making for feeling a bit close. I’ll move the orbs to a different location and increase the lighting a bit so it's not so scary.

User test 3

Me: How do you feel about the scene
Emma: It looks cool, I like the lights, it feels dark outside and spooky inside, but warmer.

Me: Do you understand how to start the game
Emma: Yes I click the big “Start”

Me: Do you know how to play the game?
Emma: Yes it's like “Simon says”. I do what the puzzle does.

Me: Is there anything else?
Emma: The balls are in the way of the door. I have to crash into them when I win. The game is too hard for me.

Conclusion - The game has matured to the point Emma is happy with it and can play it well, she still isn’t happy with the placement of the orbs so I’ve moved them back and did a quick retest, she’s now happy. I also reduced the complexity of the game to 5 steps.

Breakdown of final deliverable

So, in the end, we’ve got a dungeon puzzler that isn’t too scary for a 6-year-old to play. Emma likes the game and can successfully play it.

The basic break down of the “final product” is:

• The user is presented with a simple UI screen to start the game.

• On clicking start the player is moved into the dungeon where they are presented with 5 magic orbs. Emma’s feedback had a significant influence on orb placement and the feel of the dungeon.
• The orbs chime and blink in a random sequence which the player must complete to “escape”.

• If the player fails to repeat the sequence a “fail sound” plays, and the puzzle is repeated to give the player another chance. If they get it correct they’re moved out of the dungeon and are presented with congratulations and the ability to restart.

Conclusion

Over all, it was a fun educational exercise doing this project. Plenty of things to learn from a process perspective but also in Unity 3D development. The work has given me a few ideas for other projects to experiment with, and further solidified my view of user testing and rapid iterations in the development of a product.

Next steps

Next I think I’ll move on to a new project, but stay focused on something for that target audience. I think it would be of value to include a few more testers, including Emma’s brother and friends.

If you’re interested in playing around with the above project I’ve shared the source code via bitbucket. The other projects I’ve done via the Udacity course are also available on the Geekpulp bitbucket page.