theBlu: VR
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About theBlu VR:
theBlu VR was a launch title for Samsung's Gear VR platform. I worked on the title as an Experience & Encounter Designer, creating and directing content for the app. Using the in-house toolset and the Unity engine, I concepted, pitched and grayboxed levels, as well as writing and executing the event scripts for the levels. One of the enormous challenges of this project was to create a theBlu caliber experience that was capable of running on a phone. Its easy to imagine a majestic scenario where 900 fish all spiral together and spell out your name, its much harder to do when you only get 25 fish. Learning to maximize the staging and context of the experience was an incredibly important lesson in working smart, not just hard. This was also a fantastic opportunity for team collaboration as I worked closely with the amazing art and engineering team at WEVR to bring new environments to life. Project Timeline We began work on the project in May of 2014 and concluded in September of the same year. Project Responsibilities Designer Work on theBlu VR entailed pitching concepts for environments and major story concepts to key creative stakeholders and then actually implementing them in the game engine. In concert with the engineering team we'd request new scripting features to utilize the existing AI from the original theBlu. With those features we'd string together "story beats" to create a unique fusion of theBlu's AI-driven creatures with scripted narrative. Literally, it was like herding salmon! The other unique challenge here was that we were a launch title for the Samsung Gear. Spec hardware was changing every week and with it the possibilities. The ever changing goal post meant constantly reevaluating the creative and iterating on content to meet new specs. Where to download it: Oculus Store |
TEAMTeam Credits:
Michael Annetta - Level Designer Kyla Gorman - Level Designer Ben Miller - Executive Producer Max Geiger - Producer Borut Pfeifer - AI Engineer Scott Reeser - Lead Engineer Eyal Erez - Visual Engineer Neville Spiteri - Executive Producer |
MEDIA
PRESS / AWARDS
Winner, Best Mobile VR Experience, Proto Awards 2015