SHADES OF LIFE
A dream you won't want to wake up from.
Psychological Exploration
We care about this topic because we are interested in combining the idea of mental health and thriller by using object symbolism and active sound stimuli. We’d love to create a VR environment full of symbolic objects for users to interact with without physical constraints from the real world, as a way of discovering, expressing as well as healing one’s mentality and emotion.
Theme
“Shades of Life” is a VR game that transports players on an exploration of a surreal world filled with peculiar and magnificent landscapes. It offers a sequence of dream journey which aim to help the player in recognizing the importance of life and enhance their state of mind. We wish to provide a non-violent, stress-reducing and mental health-enhancing experience through meaningful yet simple interactions. The ultimate goal is to assist individuals struggling with depression in realizing the significance of various aspects in life.
Visual Style
The visual design of the game follows a dynamic progression throughout its three acts. The first act presents a black and white, realistically rendered world, while the second act transitions into a surreal and abstract environment rich in color. Finally, in the third act, the visual style returns to a more realistic world, now transformed into a vibrant and colorful depiction. This unique blend of realism and surrealism creates a captivating experience for players, engaging their imagination and emotions at every turn.
User Experience
The target audiences for our VR experience are people experiencing anxiety, depression, and anyone exposed to a high pressure working environment or a fast-paced lifestyle. The goal of this project is to evoke an emotional response in the player. The exploration of our dream environment should have some familiarity to previous feelings and experiences that the player has felt at one time in their life. Thus the resolution of these dreams and our narrative should provide some form of therapeutic relief to the player.
Game Mechanics
Certain objects can be picked up by the player in VR, with raycasts that are only drawn when relevant.
Certain objects can be activated once held, producing some additional effect.
Intuitive interaction with objects that react by the law of physics.
Game mechanics that activate when the player character moves along the scene, ex. Voice-over, object spawning, animations playing.
Options menu provided that allows for on the fly changing of VR locomotion method. Ie. ability to swap between continuous and snap turning.
GUI elements can be interacted with raycasts from the player’s hands.
