#ffvest

After revamping my control system a number of times I have finally decided that I will use the triggers to initiate a force based on the direction of the corresponding analogue stick. I originally had a mana/power system in the game but opted to scrap it as I want to encourage the player to go as fast as I can. I have not place a cap on the max speed, instead have made the level incredibly difficult. I have noticed that due to the enormous speed you can pick up at some points you travel faster than the game can detect a collision, at first this irritated me, but as I have played more I am deciding to leave it in for now as it is essentially luck whether you skip the collision and again its another reward for high speed. I placed jumps within the level in order to force the player to pick-up speed, I also made the track very long, while you could travel slowly you wouldn't get very far and it would be rather boring.

So with another prototype not giving the me results I was hoping for and the deadline date extremely close, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I have decided to create something that's less grounded as the vest doesn't offer the realism I'd like.I enjoyed how the used the vest as means of determining the direction of an object by creating a "rain" style feedback system that points towards it.

I have started to create a scene in which the player must cut off their own arm, in order to create a more immersive scenario I implemented the use of an Xbox360 controller using Xinput. This allowed me the use of the vibration as well as the analogue triggers which offer an input that has is more representative of actual actions than a digital button and provide me with a value based on the amount the trigger is down.

I needed to create an audio system that would cause the player discomfort,  I used freesounds.org and gathered a few clips. I then edited these to extract the sound I wanted and create looping tracks or adding fade ins/outs. I had two categories of sound: Gore and Cutting. For the gore effects I had an audio file play on loop when you started cutting and used a co-routine to play other sound clips randomly that I had put into an array.  The main loop was significantly longer to make than the other files to make loop less noticeable.

For the cutting sound I also started a looping audio for the cutting sound this was also interspersed with other cutting sound randomly played.  To make the cutting sound more responsive I adjusted the audio pitch based on the value from the trigger and I adjusted the volume using a lerp that's position was affected by the triggers position also. I then added  breathing audio, this was a simple breath in/ breath out. I had this play in a co-routine with a delay instead of looping the audio. As you got further through the arm this delay would decrease and the audios pitch would increase. In order to incorporate the vest I used a similar system to the breathing audio, as the pain increased i reduced the delay between pulses. Then halfway through I started another co-routine to send pulses to the other front valves randomly and the delay on this decreased as it progressed to the maximum pain. This however did not provide me with the results I wanted, the main problem is that your very aware of the vest at all times and this pulls you out the experience. Also as the game is audio based the noise made by the air compressor is very distracting and again pulls you out of the moment.

I was jotting down ideas of where to take Exoculo[working title] and was thinking how the game actually lacked gameplay, so naturally I was thinking how can I make it more gamey? I then started thinking about Bioshock infinite and how while I love the game, its actual game like qualities made the overall package suffer, nothing pulls you out of the moment like searching a bin for cigarettes and apples(depending on the game of course). I then started thinking about what the vest actually provided me and what is unachievable without the vest. For me it was all about the experience, the vest provides the opportunity to really give the player a sense of belonging in the game world, a sense of realism and vulnerability. Unfortunately tech like this is normally is usually placed in unimaginative horror games built purely on jump scares. When thinking of a situation that the vest would truly enhance and bring to life my mind let me to think of 127 Hours. I won't spoil anything in the movie, but I thought about how managed to evoke incredibly agonising feelings and wanted to capture similar emotions. The lack of sight and knowledge of physical feedback put the player in an unusual situation, I wish to exploit this by creating an atmospheric game that plays on this. To clarify this is not a horror game, but an attempt at created situations that provide heavier weighted situations for the player to interact.

***SPOILERS (from 127 Hours)*** Inspired by the film I will create a demo in which the player must remove their arm in the game, I will be using the feedback from the vest, the vibration from an Xbox 360 controller combined with sound effects and voice acting to create a demo that hopefully works as a proof of concept piece. I will also include a segment where the player has control of their locomotive movement to demonstrate the deeper immersion in other situations.