A sandbox virtual reality game where you only have paper and pencil as your tools. Draw weapons to fight enemies and draw objects to solve puzzles!

"Imagine yourself being stuck in a sketchbook where you can draw anything in VR"

It was the initial idea that came to us during the hackathon. We decided to build this project because we were interested to participate in the Best VR Hack Category by Unity and we are curious to see how this idea would work in virtual reality.

We started with a simple sketch of the level design, enemy classes, game mechanics, and controls. For the gameplay mechanic, we implemented a similar drawing algorithm that is used by Google Tilt Brush. We came up with a playable drawing algorithm that allows you to interact with the drawings that you've just made. First, draw something. Next, the drawn object's mesh collider is activated and it is grabbable. And lastly, when the drawn object is on the ground for 5 seconds, the drawn object will be destroyed to keep the game's performance balanced. Since it was a 24-hour hackathon at the time, we couldn't finish the whole level so we decided to make 1/4 of the planned level design and made it into a sandbox experience instead of a linear level.

There are 3 types of enemies in the game: Insects, Knights, & Fliers. To make the game more balanced with a variety of enemy types, I distributed the enemies to have balanced traits. Insects are the regular enemy type with medium health, Knights are slow enemies with large amount of health, & Fliers are aerial enemies with small health but difficult to hit. As the main UX Designer of this project, I have to ensure that the visual assets could convey the experience. I used a texture of a notebook paper as the terrains and I made the enemies look like they are made of cutout papers to match the theme of the game. Great detail makes a game looks more alive, I decided to create doodles of houses & cities to be included in the background. I also made a particle system of doodle stars that spawn in the skies.

When it comes to controls, I want to make them accessible for any dominant hand. The design of HTC Vive's controllers are ambidextrous, which is easier for me to design a dominant hand neutral controls for accessibility.

On your dominant hand, you can open the Drawing Tool Menu which includes:

• Free Draw: Draw whatever you like!
• Straight Edge: Draw based on points & joints
• New Page: Create a paper that you can use as a bridge or a shield
• DON'T PRESS THIS BUTTON!: Puts you into a VR BSOD, then resets the whole environment

I decided to make a skeuomorphic approach with the controllers when using the drawing tool. When selecting a specific tool, the controller transforms into an actual tool. For example, when you use the free drawing tool, the controller turns into a pencil which offers a more immersive experience to draw on VR.

I implemented a walking motion for the method of navigation. Since locomotion in virtual reality is still new and numerous research groups are currently finding the optimal method, I am curious to try the hand walking motion while grabbing the grip buttons on both hands. On your non-dominant hand, you can create paper which you can use as a bridge or a shield. There are numerous ways we could utilize this as a part of the gameplay, but we couldn't focus on the part because it was a 24 hour hackathon.

Overall controls:

• Touchpad (Dominant): Drawing tool menu
• Trigger button (Dominant): Draw
• Trigger Button (NDominant): Create paper
• Grip button (Both): Hold items
• Hold Grip button & Swing Controllers (Both): Walk forward

Throughout the hackathon, we have been joking about the infamous Blue Screen of Death on VR. "If your PC goes into blue screen, could you see it on VR?", asked one of our team members. We later recreated a VR BSoD in our remaining time during the hackathon and we decided to include it in the game when you reset the game scene. It would be interesting to see if any VR-based operating systems in the future implement an error screen similar to what we made.

Under 24 hours, we have successfully built a working prototype of this sandbox VR game. We won the best VR Hack by Unity. As a surprise, we also won 2nd Best Prize Overall at HackPSU Spring 2017!

If we decided to release this game on Steam, we have to add more features to the game. Level design and story is something we could focus on. We want to implement machine learning algorithm that allows the system to detect 3D drawings, similar to Google's Quickdraw but it uses 3 axis instead. 3D drawing recognition could open new gameplay possibilities!