STANDOFF

Team name: 7th Year Retirement Home

Team member names:

Tanya Boutros (301273074)

1. Sections: Introduction, goal of project/differentiator, proofread

2. Role: Ideation, visual lead, quality assurance

Sahil Mann (301250704)

1. Sections: Goal of project/differentiator, Narrative/Story, Proofreading/support of other sections

2. Role: Unity builder, and Facilitator

Steph Therriault (301284443)

1. Sections: Inspiration, visual aesthetics,

2. Sound design, and visual support

Natalie Appel (301274980)

1. Sections: Core desire user experience ABC, How VR takes advantage, Inspiration analysis

2. Role: Narrative writing, Asset & World construction

Razor

A narrative driven experience where players will embody different characters in a town held frozen in time by a standoff to discover what has happened, and that everyone has their own version of the story to tell.

Slogan

Nobody duels at high noon…without a good reason

Vision statement & top level summary of your project idea

Trouble is brewing at high noon, and everyone has taken a side. You’ll explore each facet of the conflict by jumping into the shoes of anyone in town. Navigate challenging perspectives to move deeper into the narrative, and between the characters in town. When the clocktower hits 12, and hammers fall, who will you stand with?

Goal of project/Differentiator

Our project aims to tackle the phrase “walking in someone else's shoes” from a more meaningful and immersive approach only achievable through virtual reality. Our core experience focuses on the friction that occurs around polarizing conflicts and exploring both sides of the story while contesting the non existent middle ground that may be overshadowed.

We tackle this problem with a unique form of VR movement that has the player jumping into the perspective of characters to understand their stance on the conflict. Our goal is to help bridge the gap in middle ground with empathy, normalizing the willingness to learn, and illustrating the impact of the bystander effect.

Theme(s) of project

Western period is 1850s - 1900s but acting as an allegory to modern issues.
Perspective Bias, Cultural debate, the Bystander Effect, Polarization, Futile Conflict.

Visual style of project

Low Poly Execution of Wild West visual tropes.

Reasoning: Showing unique complicated perspectives on a central conflict subverts how heavily most western depictions lean into tropes. This plays into the theme of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” by going beyond the typical characters immersants would expect in a western narrative. Low poly style allows for enough suspension of disbelief without being overly cartoonish– which would flatten the message. We pulled inspiration from games like SuperHot, Where Thoughts Go, and FireWatch, because they use similarly non-distracting yet abstracted polygonal styles to deliver powerful narratives.

Core desired user experience

The journey is piecing together the narrative and realizing that there is no black and white answer. Every character has their own experiences and biases that are impacting how they are viewing the situation. We want users to feel conflicted over the different narratives and develop emotions towards the characters in different ways. This will create impact at the end where players are given the choice to shoot or not, and we want players to feel the internal conflict over whose side to take and the consequences of their actions. The consequences of actions can be particularly interesting in regards to the bystanders. Bystanders can often have a lot of impact in situations whether they realize it or not, and this experience gives the bystander effect a physical manifestation of choice. Players can be the central characters of conflict as the duelers, or they can be the bystander, but it doesn’t matter because in the end the result will be the same. The conflict will still be there, even at the cost of human life.

a) Desired user experience and how your VR experience ideally transforms immersants

The ending will be a black screen with gunshot sounds and then fade in showing unmarked graves no matter what choices the player makes in the end. This is a reflection on the theme of the futility of conflict and the gray ambiguity of real world debates and the human costs it can sometimes have. We hope that next time players are experiencing or learning about real world conflicts that they pause to consider the multiple perspectives of the parties involved, and how their own personal biases impact their views on the issue.

b) How is your project taking advantage of the special affordance and opportunity of VR?

Our project revolves around the idea of swapping between people's perspectives and how the viewpoint of those perspectives limits who the player can swap to. This places players in the seat of the action of the people in town to increase tension and guide how the narrative will unfold.

c) Relation to course design challenge

Our project relates to the course design challenge by demonstrating the impact of world conflicts.The western shoot out can act as a metaphor for multiple types of conflict: politics, cultural differences, gender debates, racial biases. We leave it to the immersant to choose what this shootout represents, but we hope that this fictional experience of a contained narrative with multiple perspectives can make people reflect on how similar debates take place in the real world. And maybe in the future, try to put yourself in another person's shoes to understand why they fall within a certain side of a conflict, even if it is against what they believe.

Introduction

The premise is a western style shootout representing common conflicts in the world. It will be navigated through listening to and gathering different perspectives of bystanders of the scene. Our goal is to help bridge the gap in middle ground with empathy, normalizing the willingness to learn, and illustrating the impact of the bystander effect. The core interaction involves the user switching through the different perspectives of characters within the scene.

Narrative/Story

The participant enters the story at its climax. Faced with two polarizing stances the player sees the embodiment of the two opinions ready to draw at high noon in this western world. With a lack of clear protagonist/antagonist one character is fighting for revenge over the destruction of his livelihood. While the other battles for control over the town and its people. Surrounded by other “supporters” of this conflict the player will travel into the shoes of the various people of interest to uncover their true thoughts of the stance. With an open ended and non linear narrative structure the immersant can listen to as many or as few perspectives until high noon strikes. At which point the immersant will choose a side. We close out the story by illustrating a partially ambiguous result to their choice by displaying a series of unmarked graves.

Storyboard

VR mechanics & Physical Rig

Core mechanics

The core mechanic of our project is gaze-based interaction. The user interacts within the experience by looking at different characters for a few seconds to fill the status bar before being transported into the body. The UI text of the character's professions appears above their head when players glance over them so they can make decisions about who they want to jump to. Once in the body they will be able to listen to voice acted dialogue that provides them with insight into the event and the characters opinion on the shooters.

Targeted Audience

There is one user at a time for our project experience. Our targeted audience consists of users in their 20-50s who are opinionated and strong minded people. Preferably people will have some experience navigating VR but it is not necessary.

Envisioned physical setup

The physical setup consists of a walled off section of the room with curtains. Inside is the computer with the headset and headphones. The team was dressed in cowboy hats and western gear.

The instructions we provided our users are as follows:

Upon entering this experience, you will be dropped into a town in the middle of a gun fight frozen in time. To find out what's happening, move around town by embodying the characters by adjusting your gaze to hover over the character for a few seconds. After embodying that selected character, you are free to explore the internal thoughts of everyone in the town. You can stay and listen to the narration for as long or as short as you want. You only have 6 minutes, so keep an eye on the clock tower. Have fun!

We would then ask them the following question prior to having them begin the experience:

“What's a debate that is currently important to you? This can be anything from politics or vaccines, to the best movie or sports team.”

Locomotion technique

Point and go Teleportation

Pros: User directed teleportation allows for highly controlled movement in discrete "hops", reduced motion sickness from no continuous movement

Cons: Teleportation can be disorienting as visual orientation cues in the environment do not move continuously.

Head tilt direction

Pros: feels natural and can be picked up quickly, reduces motion sickness

Cons: space and mobility concerns with balancing or falling over if surprised. Can make people dizzy and potentially cause strain from muscle tension being held in the neck/sternum repeatedly.

We decided on Point and Go Teleportation into the various NPC characters. This is the easiest to implement and also allows us to control where players go so they can focus on the narrative instead of travel.

Inspiration Analysis

Panoptic is a VR game where one player is a large figure searching for another, smaller player. This inspired our main method of interaction (perspective jumping) by 1) getting us to think from multiple perspectives and 2) interacting by looking around.

The good, the bad, and the ugly is particularly inspiring for it’s final standoff scene. Tension isn’t created because each character has a gun, but because of what each character knows (and what they plan to do).

Red Dead Redemption: Not only is this game set in a western, but it also follows the story of a complicated “villain”. The main character is a former outlaw, but the actions he takes in the game is a result of pressure by the “good” law enforcement holding his family captive unless the does as he says. This is inspirational for the idea of multi-faceted narrative and characters that are not clearly good or bad, but have gray moral ambiguity.

Immersion Frameworks

(a) In what way will your project support immersion, flow and/or presence etc.?

Our project will support immersion, flow, and presence through our method of interaction. The users will not need a controller in order to interact within the experience, therefore giving it a much more organic and immersive feeling. The absence of a controller is a key aspect in our project, as the user can genuinely feel as if they are able to transport into different minds just by looking at a person.

(b) What type of immersion are you focusing most on, and why? How do you plan on using these to support your overall project objectives and desired user experience?

Our main type of immersion is challenge-based, with a bit of imagination-based. We chose challenge-based immersion as it appealed to all of us the most. We thought that including some sort of a challenge within the experience would keep users engaged with the interaction and not lose interest within the experience. The need to follow a narrative in order to pick a side in the end will keep the user entertained while exploring what they can do within the experience. We touch on a bit of imaginative-based immersion with the concept of being able to jump between peoples perspectives and hear their thoughts.

(c) Please explain in detail how your team plans on evoking your chosen immersion aspects.

The challenge based immersion will be provided by the navigation and time limit of the experience. The navigation of gaze based body teleportation encouraged users to explore and search to find all the characters. The time limit also adds an element of challenge in that they must decide how long to stay in each character and attempt to navigate as quickly as possible. The imagination base comes in the form of the narrative where it provides enough clues for players to be able to piece together what is potentially going on. Setting the experience in a western also encourages a sense of imagination as it is an impossible world to be in.

Why Your Project is Innovative

(a) What’s new/interesting/cool/exciting/different about your project?

Our variation on teleportation locomotion (teleporting into NPCs) hasn’t been done in VR and has plenty of room for further exploration “Challenge based locomotion” becomes a possible frame for encouraging exploration and the narrative is told through different people that creates different paths for the player and overall different experiences. All of which reinforces our message.

(b) Why is your project relevant? How does it provide a meaningful / desirable experience to the users?

This experience is supposed to be a representation of many different conflicts happening in the world. Instead of focusing on a single debate like politics, we allow players to impart their own conflicts into the experience and learn from it in a way that can be taken back into the real world. Nothing is every black and white, and that is true whether it be in a video game or real life.

(c) For your showcase, what would be your main “selling points”? Why should anyone care about it?

Our selling point is the unique narrative experience while also having the fun setting of a western. Westerns are not something explored a great deal in gaming and even less popular in media since the fall of the cowboy western era. So this gives people an interesting chance to take part in an interesting experience.

User Testing Goals and Outcomes

(a) Goals, Questions, and Hypotheses:

1. Users will prefer having their perspective shifted to match the direction a character is looking at. We wanted to make sure that shifting the users perspective would not cause them to get motion sick and help orient them in the scene.

2. Placing our experience in a low poly world can help with immersion as they are less focused on the visuals and more on the gameplay. We wanted to make sure that people would be able to focus on the narrative aspects but still be curious to look around and not grow bored.

3. Users will grow frustrated with listening to the narrative if it is over 1 minute. We wanted to find the balance that had people interested in the narrative but not too long that they would grow bored.

4. 5 minutes should be enough time for users to experience the narrative and make a decision. We wanted to add in the aspect of a time limit but were unsure about how long to make it so people would stay engaged.

5. The characters people visit will affect which side they stand on (Rancher or Sheriff). This was one of the foundations of our project as we needed to see if the narrative was balanced and if the bias and lack of information actually had an effect.

6. Additional sound elements like music can help enhance the immersion without being distracting. We were concerned that adding music may make it difficult to understand the narrative or be distracting.

7. Adding Floating character name UI will decrease time it takes for players to navigate and thus reach their optimal amount of information. As it is not obvious who each character is from appearance and location we wanted ways for players to make informed decisions about who they would navigate too.

8. Seeing the voting status of previous players could affect someone's own vote for which side to stand one. People can sometimes base their opinions on immediate feedback, thus we wanted to see if a physical representation of that from the experience was true.
   

(b) Methods:

1. We had the users run two versions of the system, A/B testing, one where we forcibly shifted perspectives and one where we didn’t and took notes on their reactions. We also asked for feedback on whether there was a preference for one or the other.

2. We had the users navigate around the environment and explore then provide feedback on their experience. We also kept track of how often they jumped characters to see if there was a difference when we added more elements of sound and animation.

3. We conducted narrative testing outside of the game just using sticky notes on the table that users could place a token on and we would read out the different parts. We read through the narrative at different speeds and kept track of how often players moved the token and asked follow up questions after.

4. We ran narrative testing with sticky notes and reading out loud with a five minute timer several times and kept track of how many characters users visited. Afterwards we asked them questions about the narrative and their thoughts on the time limit.

5. We conducted narrative testing outside of the game just using sticky notes on the table that users could place a token on and we would read out the different parts. We kept track of the characters they visited and afterwards asked users which side they stood on and why.

6. Earlier versions had no sound so a later iteration included sound and we tested the new build with users. Afterwards we asked them questions about their experience.

7. Initial navigation testing with sticky notes allowed users to see everything at once. With the VR setup we tested a draft level without UI and then another version with UI cues. We observed how fast players were able to move around and asked feedback on their experience.

8. We created a voting box that contained 2 hidden jars with the pictures of the sheriff and rancher characters. We then had players who had completed the experience drop a marble into one of the slots. After a few questions we revealed the results of the vote and asked if the votes changed their opinion.

(c) Results:

1. We found that they prefer to have their vision shifted so that they would not have to turn so much and it did not cause any motion sickness issues.

2. We found people enjoyed the landscape but users also discussed it being too big to navigate around easily in our form of gaze based locomotion.

3. Users listened to the full narrations of the main shooters but often jumped at the longer narrations of other characters in town if they did not grab them right away.

4. Users found the 5 minutes time limit too short. However, this also varied depending on who was reading the narrative as some of us read faster than others. As a result we decided to wait until the final voice acting was complete to make a decision.

5. Initial testing with in class users found a heavy leaning to the Rancher’s side. This came with feedback that the Sheriff seemed really mean to everyone and town and thus was not very likable. The Rancher also had more personal insights into his life.

6. People liked the addition of the western twang music as it added to the atmosphere and provided some extra layers of depth instead of just narrative voice acting.

7. Adding the UI for characters was a good decision as it allowed players to make decisions about whether they wanted to visit a certain character or not. We also found that players used the characters as navigation reference points and figured out how they could hop around to different characters based on their prior actions.

8. While most users stated that it did not affect their decision, some did say they wished that they had been able to hear more of the other side's story. There was also discussion from others that said that the votes did not affect them because there wasn’t truly a right answer to the dilemma, both sides had their rights and wrongs.
   

(d) Meta-reflection:

1. This allowed us to be more selective in how we designed the level layout. Because we could purposefully guide users attention to certain areas upon them entering a body we were able to strategically place characters in their view to help guide users through the experience.

2. Knowing that the visuals were receiving positive feedback we were able to move forward with more customization. This included things like shrinking the size of the town as well as removing unneeded elements to improve how the game ran. We did find though that in the final showcase some people were just having more fun looking around and not paying much attention to the narrative making them have to go back.

3. Some narration was trimmed down but for the most part length was not adjusted too much as we wanted the play with the experience of users not having all the information if they chose to jump early. However, we did try to keep the final voice action a bit quicker so people wouldn’t grow too bored listening.

4. Upon the completion of the voice acting we tallied the total time it would take to listen to all of them from start to finish. This turned out to be 10 minutes upon which we added some extra time for navigation. However, during the final showcase we found people moving a lot and growing bored at the long time slot so it was finalized to 6 minutes in the end.

5. While the first draft was written with 2 characters being pro sheriff we realized that they were not super obvious about their stances compared to the pro rancher characters. Thus we adjusted the narrative before the final voice recordings. This ended up causing a swing in the opposite direction upon showcase day where people tended to prefer the sheriff. However, upon the final tally of votes the results were more even at 6 to 5 with the sheriff over by 1.

6. The music ended up being a good edition as people enjoyed it as long as it stayed at a quiet level. We decided not to play any audibly in our out of VR setup as country is not liked by everyone and didn’t want two soundtracks potentially overlapping while someone was in the experience.

7. While the team was aware of who all the characters were having, the UI allowed us to subtly influence the narration. While the background of some characters were more obvious with their narration, others were not. Thus UI saved time and helped create a more natural narrative where we did not have to write in bits stating profession.

8. This was a last minute addition to the physical setup but it was interesting feedback to receive. There was discussion among the team that the big reveal of the votes would likely be more dramatic if there were more to see if that tipped the scales one way or another.

Prototyping process

Development Process

(a) Summary

When we began this process, we started ideating our core mechanic on a Miro board. From there we got the western shootout idea and then further refined the impact we wanted to focus on. After settling on our impact, we started to decide what the major conflict would consist of for the narrative.

We then started to write the narrative and conducted narrative tests with our classmates. Meanwhile, we were developing the scene in Unity, which led us to decide on our core mechanic and type of locomotion to be gaze-based. We then conducted interaction user tests with our classmates, designed our poster, and created our pitch video.

We created our website and updated our VRDD accordingly. Lastly, we created interview questions for our users post-experience and we set up for our final showcasing.

(b) Discussion and reflection on your team process

Our team process was efficient and ran pretty smoothly. Collaborating on the Miro board was helpful and allowed everyone a chance to say their ideas in a timely manner. Voting on our ideas ensured everyone was happy with what we decided on in the end. At times, we found ourselves disagreeing due to some misunderstanding, but we always made sure everyone was on the same page before moving forward.

Critique

What feedback did you receive?

We received feedback on whether or not we should use a controller. We were told that not using a controller would be a more immersive experience. We were also told that we should ensure our narrative is compelling enough to captivate our users. We were also critiqued on some technical issues within the unity scene.

How specifically did you incorporate them into your current project? If you did not, please justify.

We took the critique to not implement the need for a controller to navigate. Instead we went with gaze-based interaction. We also tried our best to ensure our narrative made sense, but without being too obvious, as that would defeat the purpose of our experience. Lastly, we tried our best to fix as many of the bugs as possible, such as being able to select a character through a wall.

Equipment needs

What kind of equipment will you need for your showcase?

• 2 computers (provided by us)

• 2 VR headsets (provided by the library)

• 2 sets of Headphones (provided by library)

• 1 laptop for taking interview notes (Provided by us)

• 1 camera for documentation purposes (Provided by us)

Technical Documentation

How to run/build/deploy the application:

1. Ensure Unity is installed with a version 2020 or later

2. Open TownWIP scene from project files in Unity

3. Import XR interaction manager libraries and android build support (follow this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyxbA2bm7os)

4. Connect oculus quest 2 and follow all setup instructions. Verify that the headset is connected by viewing the device page in the oculus desktop app, a green checkmark should appear for the appropriate device.

5. Enable developer mode for oculus (required for standalone builds only)

6. Put on the quest 2 headset and enable desktop link (airlink works as well if you have the wifi infrastructure to support it)

7. In Unity, Play the game. This should automatically play the game on the connected headset and show a live preview of the player view in Unity.

8. To create a standalone build (able to be played without connection) Adjust player settings and build settings. Switch platform to android and ensure that the target device selected is the connected quest 2 headset. Then build and run.

System Architecture Overview:

Plugins used:

• None (this project does not use the Steam VR libraries)

Assets:

• Low polygon western pack (link)

• Music:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTm-WFM0v-g&ab_channel=MrSnoozeIBackgroundMusicforVideos

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfBgmw_xCVY&ab_channel=AudioExpanse

Scripts:

• RayTest

  • Handles most of the interactive behavior

  • Shoots out (and displays in scene view only ) a ray from thc centre of the player head. It detects whenever it hits an object on the “lookable” layer. When a lookable object is being looked at, it toggles the UI elements in the head canvas and begins counting up based on a timestared threshold. When the threshold is met, an animation is played (dip to black), the player is teleported and roated according to the position of a game object contained in the lookable’s HeadToggler Script. After teleportation and rotation, a translation and rotation offset occur to account for XR origin drift. The appropriate head toggle calls are made, as well as the calls to play the new target characters narration, and stop the only characters narration if it’s ongoing.

• HeadToggler

  • Responsible for calling functions that toggle their associated character heads on and off

• ClockTimer

  • Tracks and limits overall gametime, and rotates the hands on the clocktower appropriately

  • Has thresholds for time so ticking begins to play, then the screen fades to black, then a gunshot sound is played.

Problems encountered and solutions:

• In early implementations, players could look at any lookable character through walls because the ray used to detect where players were looking only cared about lookable characters, and was not blocked by anything. To address this, a second ray is fired that detects only objects on the default layer (where everything that’s not UI or Lookable is). The distance of each rays collision is compared to detect cases when a default object is occluding a lookable object. This prevented characters behind walls from being interactive.

• Early implementations didn’t account for “XR origin drift” which is when the system assumes the player is located at, and facing, in the same direction as the exact moment the system was initiated. This leads to players standing next to headless characters that they should be embodying. During player teleportation, a series of complicated offsets occur to account for players being able to freely rotate and move while looking around.

• Because the teleportation animation (dipping to black) needs to play before players are actually teleported, a major bug would sometimes occur if a player looked away from a character in the slim period between when the animation started and when they would be teleported. As a result, the system would fade the screen to black, and wouldn’t teleport the player. The player was left in darkness, and wouldn’t be able to navigate anymore. To fix this, a boolean logic system was implemented that ensure teleportation would occur if the fade to black animation occured.

Source code and executable:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OSuMeqBK8MGIRwioufcmzZEdyDiuagYz?usp=sharing

Appendix A: Documentation of Ideation Process