Working with the oculus rift

This is a project i completed in University working with another Student. the aim of the brief was to make a fast paced, first person arcade shooter designed with the Oculus rift in mind in the Unreal engine 3. Our initial idea for the game was to have it set in a dystopian futuristic city where you go around exterminating aliens and pests in the city. this idea however was scrapped as we thought we should focus more on making it an arcade game (Very simple, and colourful). The final concept is very simple. You are on a space station known as the Zeltron station. you start in the room known as the Hub. From here you take portals to different levels with different difficulty options. We think having this style of game where the player can choose which level and difficulty they want makes it feel a lot more like an arcade game.

Gameplay-wise the idea of the game is to progress through each level by destroying all of the enemies and making it to the end within the time limit. Any time you take damage you lose time and every time you destroy an enemy you gain time. Also there are certain powerups to shoot which can give extra time and weapons. Other than that there are not many gameplay mechanics as we tried to keep it simple.

Here are some screenshots and videos of the game:

This is the Hub world. In the center of the room is the central Hub console. This is purely a visual thing and has no gameplay attached to it. It is the focal point of the room and draws the player towards it.

This is the very start of the level. You will come out of this portal. On the right where the targets are the player can move towards them and there will be a popup explaining what they each do.

The majority of the level is spent on this lift which takes the player through the level. the green barriers act as cover for the player to hide behind.

At this point the player leaves the elevator. I think this screenshot shows how colourful and simple we wanted the game to be.

Enemies will spawn out of the portals and hide behind the red barriers, which the player can shoot through.

Below is a playthrough of the level. Unfortunately there is no sound and there are a few missing textures but it shows what the game is like and how it plays.

This was an extremely fun project and in the end it turned out great. Everybody who tried it out said it was very fun. Also all of the testing we did with the oculus rift was a great experience and was amazing to see our own game running with it.