VOLTRON: VR CHRONICLES

Platform:

HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Playstation VR

Roles:

Lead Designer, Narrative Director, Story & Dialogue Writer

Overview

Oversaw and directed pre-vis of cinematic and gameplay sequences during pre-production
Created full project Game Design Documentation to detail all aspects of the experience and all related gameplay mechanics and systems
Created video animatics to clearly demonstrate new gameplay concepts and system to the whole team, along with a full narrative flow to showcase the moment-to-moment experience of the User
Worked with the Licence Holder and Show Creative Team to ensure product authenticity throughout the experience
Lead the narrative re-design at the request of the License Holder to re-focus the project halfway through development, requiring new content and systems to be incorporated into the experience
Wrote all character dialogue and crafted a full five-episode story design and breakdown for the intended scope of the project
Created an intuitive flight & combat system to cater to a wide range of User experience and VR comfort levels
Designed and oversaw VR puzzle interactions that focused on variety of input and optimized the spatial opportunities of VR spaces
Created an intuitive UI format to help the User differentiate between interactive and non-interactive sequences
Created a cinematic presentation system that incorporated the visual language of the show with the unique properties of VR display
Directed VR cinematic scenes to ensure a clear narrative flow and User focus (along with maintaining VR comfort levels)
Designed Lion Cockpit holo-panel UI, bespoke Alien UI and language, along with puzzle UI to help maintain show authenticity and clear User communication
Directed dialogue recording sessions one-on-one with show talent
Countless untold hours of playtesting, polishing and dialogue re-writes and VR balancing to find the sweet-spot between ‘Wow!’ and ‘Here comes my lunch!”

Detailed Info

As my first VR project, Voltron was a true learning experience. Upon joining the team at Digital Domain Interaction in mid 2016, my primary task was to provide a clear direction for what the experience should provide the User. The project had been in a state of gestation for a few months at this point, with a handful of conceptual mechanics and a general story conceit, but there was no clear overview of the project from start to finish for the entire team, and no vision for how and what the User would experience on a moment-to-moment basis…

The first step was to create a detailed GDD that incorporated the pre-existing systems and created new designs for additional mechanics and gameplay, using a cinematic experience that reflected the quality and direction of the source material. This documentation provided a full breakdown of every game system, story-beat and User experience from start to finish.

Spaceflight and combat sequences required careful design to ensure that a wide range of User experience could be catered to, with special consideration being made to VR comfort levels. Drawing upon the source material of the show, a system was created that gave the User direct control over their Lion as they flew through space, allowing them to avoid obstacles while the game steered their general direction to ensure that they followed the narrative track. This was combined with head-tracking as an intuitive input system for space combat, allowing Users of all ages and experiences to both fly and shoot at the same time (and feel bad-ass while doing both).

With the goal of creating an experience that felt like you were part of the actual show itself, cinematic presentation was a primary concern and the challenge of presenting this in VR required the creation of new User language to help differentiate between interactive and non-interactive sequences. Narrative focus and references from other characters was used to help indicate when a User was a direct part of the story, and when they were merely observing. This was especially important given the User’s sense of presence in VR, which makes traditional cinematic presentation difficult to communicate.

Puzzles and world interactions were kept deliberately fresh, allowing the User to experience a large number of differing mechanics and physical challenges. Based around a number of different input types, these sequences all followed tactile systems that required the User to combine motions and gestures to solve puzzles, as well as introducing them to the spatial challenges of VR.

“And I’ll form the head!”

As my first VR project, Voltron was a true learning experience. While some pre-existing design practices could be used, many others not only didn’t translate well to VR but actually proved detrimental and so many new systems and concepts had to be designed from scratch.

This project needed to combine first-person interaction, space-based dog-fighting and hands-on puzzle solving, all taking place within a fully immersive 360° environment with a large cast of characters and multiple locations. Adding to the challenge was a brief development schedule and a need to work hand-in-hand with both Dreamworks and the Voltron: Legendary Defender creative team as hands-on partners.

Puzzles, Problems & Huge Flying Space Lions!

Upon joining the team at Digital Domain Interaction in mid 2016, my primary task was to provide a clear direction for what the experience should provide the User. The project had been in a state of gestation for a few months at this point, with a handful of conceptual mechanics and a general story conceit, but there was no clear overview of the project from start to finish for the team, and no vision for how and what the User would experience moment-to-moment.

Before I could write a Game Design Document that provided this overview, I first had to review the existing systems and concepts, evaluating their practical use towards the current vision and scope of the project. This was then followed by several months of additional design, as new mechanics and gameplay were required to complete the experience.

At this point in the development of the project, the User assumed the role of a new character that had been created solely for the VR experience, inserted into the cast of pre-existing characters from the show. Playing as this character for the entirety of the experience, the User was required to move around the locations, exploring and interacting with characters and objects.

As a result, I needed to create a full VR locomotive system that provided enough differing options to support a variety of User’s comfort levels, as well as being easy to read and understand.

The User as an Active Observer

Unlike traditional 2D interactive storytelling, VR casts the User as an active observer. You, as the User, are not just watching a cinematic scene play out on a screen, you are standing on the stage within the story. This fact proved immensely challenging to design a narrative around, as we quickly learned that we could not control what the User may or may not choose to focus on at any point. As a result, this drove the need for a design that would draw attention through ‘spotlight’ staging, with the majority of narrative content occurring within small, preset fields within the locations. While the User is still free to look around at the beautiful, fully-immersive 360 environment that surrounds them, they only need to focus on one or two specific points at any time to follow the story itself.

When the narrative focus was required to move around the User, we were careful to always lead the User’s eye with set-pieces that drew their attention and to always ensure that virtual camera cuts followed the flow of the narrative, so that they would not lose sight of the story within the world.

In addition, we also learnt that camera cuts and placement had to be carefully controlled and edited. Fast cuts that blinked a User from one location or viewpoint to another could easily overwhelm User in VR, and so we spent a long time finding exactly the right amount of fade time in and out of camera cut to off-set even the most tremulous of nausea-prone stomachs.

Another lesson quickly learned was the placement of the VR camera itself. While certain cinematic scenes begged for more ‘extreme’ positioning and movement, we soon discovered that these did not sit well with many of the audience. As result, we made sure to keep the ‘Observer’ cameras as real-world as possible, to make sure that the User always felt grounded in the scene and the story.

Look, but Don’t Touch

With the User occupying one of two states at any time (Narrative Character or Observer), we also quickly discovered a need to reinvent the language of storytelling within VR. In a traditional game or experience, players have become used to the concept of the cinematic cut-scene thanks to the concept of the ‘Black Bars’. When these appear at the top and bottom of the screen, the player instinctively knows that they are no longer required to interact and can simply sit back and watch the ensuing story play out.

However, in VR the player is not watching either gameplay or story from the abstract safety of a removed position. They are literally standing within the world, and as a result we quickly learned that we needed to create a new method of communication to inform the User that they should stop attempting to interact with the world and characters around them and simply observe.

The solution we settled on was to highlight the User’s lack of interaction by removing their physical presence (their hands) and carefully shifting narrative focus away from the User. For example, when assuming the role of a narrative character the User is given that character’s hands as substitutes for their own, allowing them to interact with the world around them. Additionally, the narrative cast surrounding them is constantly referencing their place within the world by making eye contact with them, or indicating their presence through body language.

Contrasting this, when the User transitions to the role of Observer and is required only to follow the story from a non-participating perspective, these elements are removed. The Users hands are not present (communicating simply that they cannot interact with the world), and the cast of characters deliberately stops acknowledging the User, further referencing that they are no longer an active element within the story.

Both of these systems working together allowed to us to create simple transitions from one state to another, with the User quickly recognizing on their when they were required to participate and when they were able to merely observe.

Voltron VR