Hao Wang

LOCKDOWN

Move the fish with “WASD” to find the woodblocks that are able to let the fish go higher and escape



https://hahawangwang.itch.io/lockdown

In China, there is an idiom that says “The collective good is above all else”, and this has coerced many minorities obligated to sacrifice their benefit for others, especially under the “zero-covid” policy the government took in response to omicron. The specific issue I want to address in this scene is the minorities that live far away from the dense population and have much fewer chances to get the virus, and these groups are often elder or disabled individuals who are disengaged from society. To emphasize the “unity” in China, the government makes the health care workers travel for a long time and tests these people. This conduct is not only useless in response to the virus but also exposed those minorities to a higher risk of exposure.


Initially, I want to create a 3D environment in a form of an escape room and the users act as non-human animals that need to find the right woodblocks to get out. The animal I chose to put in this scene is the blobfish, who is almost only able to crawl on the seafloor slowly instead of swimming fastly. By playing like a fish, the player would be able to experience the different moves and perspectives which will cause some troubles. For instance, the fish is not able to get through some gates or high-angle ladders because it is not able to swim like other fishes. I hope through playing this game, the players will be able to raise care for the minorities.


  • I was happy that the script and most of the structure worked out in this project and that the player is able to control and move the fish as intended. The collider was causing a lot of trouble to me in that a lot of the modeling I did in rhino was not able to have precise colliders, so it is constantly blocking the route of the fish. I also wished to have more time experimenting with the materials and the audios. I thought adding audio when the fish hit the object would be more interesting and immersive. The sizes of different models are not planned well and the second and third floor of the boat was too small for the fish to get inside sometimes, so I changed the right route for it to escape.


  • A key feature of this project that was not able to be implemented by me was the contaminated sharks in the scene. I was planning to make them self-swimming in the scene and spread the virus to where they traveled. By doing this, the player would need to escape from this scene before the route is contaminated but the fish controlled by the player is only able to crawl slowly on different surfaces, which might create a sense of desperation in the player that is similar to how those minorities felt when they are not taken into account by the government.



  • I build the fish controlled by the player, the boat, the wood blocks, and the big box with the sand. The crane was borrowed from my MT project

  • The ocean audio, sharks, plant, the rocks, and the camera assets are unity assets.