During the last few weeks, I have been optimising Lunarium for Mobile VR. The current APK is 48kb (very small) and so after discussing this with Al, I feel I can begin again to add in features which are currently on the backlog. From now until submission I will be focusing on game character development and and cinematics to produce a cut scene (As stated in the development plan). .
In the last month I have been researching level design and looking at Sea of Thieves (SoT) an open world game created and produced by RARE, and many Mobile VR Games, particularly world of mazes (WoM). SoT and WoM are strongly narrative driven games. The narrative is evident in the characters, environment, props and animated scenes.
In GAM720, I used the poem Wheels, written by Nancy Cunard as a starting point for the project. At this time I was developing a narrative and story but did not havre a clear purpose for the app. I had briefly developed some initial characters based on the poem.
Mystic
Fairground worker.
Ringmaster
I also worked on branding and developed a basic fairground arena. The project was a screen based PC game (it didnt even have a working character controller or written narrative). Since then the project has evolved into a site specific, VR App that connects opera with the teenage demographic at a Live Halloween Event. The narrative has evolved and I am beginning to introduce Opera tthrough Operatic Orchestration by reference to the opera, video games and academic research.
Although it was briefly considered how the appeal of this app could be widened by marketing it as a non site specific party experience (using the model of ‘murder mystery game’) for now this app will be installed on site near an operatic theatre on Halloween.
I think that I can connect the original poem Wheels (written by a poet that lived near the opera in the 1920’s), to Operatic Production by using classical (popularised) operatic music referenced in videogames.
To do this I want to focus on the character and narrative of Death as referenced in the poem, the opera and the classical popularised work Danse Macabre associated with the videogame.
Next Steps:
Death:
Research
Sketch
Design
Model
Rig
Animate
Export to Unity
Install Character, Animation and Music in Unity.