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ORNAMENT EXPRESS

STEAM DESCRIPTION

Investigate strange oddities in Ornament Express, where you’re hired to recover your client’s belongings from an eccentric thief and his train of stolen artifacts. Explore a cabinet of curiosities throughout the train, visit carts holding odd puzzles, odder objects, and find hidden away secrets.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In Ornament Express, the player takes on the role of a private investigator, who's tasked with retrieving stolen objects & finding out who the culprit is and where they're going.

As a 3rd year project, I worked for 32 weeks on creating a VR Puzzle game with 17 other students. We chose a project brief which required;

  • A VR escape room / puzzle game

  • Set in 1800's Switzerland

  • A moving train environment

GENRE

VR, Puzzle, Singleplayer, Escape Room

PLATFORM

Steam

DEVELOPMENT STATS

YEAR

Team Size: 18

Duration: 32 weeks

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

2022-2023

ROLES & CONTRIBUTIONS

Game designer:

  • Research VR gameplay & interactions

  • Brainstorm & concept the game loop & interactions​

  • Design & prototype gameplay features

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UI/UX Designer:

  • Research menu implementation & gameplay in VR

  • Concept & design menu interaction features

  • Work cross disciplinary to fully develop & implement
    menu features

  • Model, unwrap, texture & implement visuals for all menu related features

PROGRAMS USED

UnrealEngineLogo.png

UE5

a6a4bfb514e96ecf6fdbb6cce692cc48.png

Maya 2024

pngwing.com.png

Substance Painter

perforce.webp

Perforce

JiraFocus.webp
Confluence.webp
miro.webp

JIRA

Confluence

Miro

MAIN MENU

DIEGETIC MENU

Folowing research on what kind of VR UI the project could benefit from, my main responsibility was developing diegetic UI. 

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This was based on what competitor games were doing, as well as wanting the player to have a play space to learn the mechanics & experience VR.​

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The main menu is based on a locomotive, allowing aesthetics to support the diegetic UI (levers, buttons & pulleys).

CONCEPT & IMPLEMENTATION

MAIN MENU FEATURES

Focussing on what were considered the core necessities of a main menu in VR, the features included in the main menu are;

  1. Enter game sequence; an interaction the player has to perform to fully show their grasp on VR & the game's controls

  2. Audio settings; raise & lower audio (ambient, SFX & music)

  3. Movement settings; adjust movement type & settings (teleport vs. glide, how fast can the player move, etc)

  4. Turning settings; the player can rotate the camera while standing still & should be adjustable (snapping vs smooth rotating, rotation speed, etc.)

  5. Exit game; a quick way to leave the game.

MAIN MENU - LEVEL LAYOUT

One of this project's requirements was that it took place in a train. I chose a locomotive as the main menu space due to it being a small confined space & the place in a train where all it's controls are.

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After creating a list of required elements, I concepted 2 locomotive spaces, one where all elements were spread out throughout the area, while the other focused on having it collected on one side.

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Layout 2 was chosen due to the clarity having all settings in one overview brings,

as well as the amount of space for toys, interactables & environmental story telling.

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ENTER GAME SEQUENCE

When designing a diegetic feature, I was trying to create 2 categories of interactions;

  • Short, simple movements, where the player only has to move their hands & finishes an interaction faster.

  • Large, full range movements, where I tried to get the feeling of what the object represents into it's interaction (i.e. moving a level to start the game feels weighty).

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To give more weight to the player's interaction & to prevent confusion, the large, full range interaction type was picked.

 

When iterating & playtesting the sequence, it turned out through playtesting that the interaction was 1 step too long & left player confused, so we simplified it further in the final version.

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MAIN MENU - AUDIO SETTINGS

When designing the audio siders I created 2 concepts based on the previous small vs. big movement mindset I applied to the main menu;

  1. Based on the idea of elevator buttons & guages in a locomotive, the player would be able to choose a sound volume by pressing the corresponding button.

  2. Based on cranks & levers/sliders found in the locomotive, this would lean more into the game enter sequence. The player moves a lever & based on it's position it set the volume level.

In the end we went with concept 2, the button concept had too many interactables close together (which would either take up too much space or be finnicky to use) & the lever fed more into the aesthetic.

MAIN MENU - MOVEMENT SETTINGS

Building on the sliders made for the audio menu, I designed the movement settings to be just as interactive.

Players can choose their movement setting, whether they want to teleport or use the joystick to slide around, by hitting the Type button at the top.

They can then adjust their movement speed, if they chose joystick controls.

MAIN MENU - TURNING SETTINGS

Turning settings were set up similiarly to the movement, with a button to change between types (snapping camera turns or gradual camera turning) & sliders to adjust the speed and intensity.

Visual Art

Due to a lack of artist's working on this project, I've modelled, textured & implemented the assets below myself. I felt it was my responsibility to make the diegetic UI as clear & visually fitting as possible.

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