VR Hand Tracked Wizard Game
Team roles
- Ranno - Hand tracking, Sounds design and UI
- Lauri - Map, Assets, Core game loop
- Darius - Spells, Spell SFX and FX
Our 3 Emotions we wanted to convey with our project were:
- Thrill - The thrill of being chased down by a horde of goblins as you try to fight them off in an epic battle
- Power - The feeling of power is very well conveyed through the hand tracking, it makes you feel like an actual wizard casting amazing and powerful spells
- Tension - Tension or even fear trying to survive in an arena fighting for your life against the hordes of enemies.
Description:
Wouldst thou seek to vanquish goblins? The query, of course, was rhetorical. Pray, procure thyself Spellslinger VR, and demonstrate thy mystical prowess!
You are a wizard in an arena fighting enemies using spells that you cast using hand tracking. Different gestures cause different spells. The game is a last-man-standing, where you have to eliminate all foes or die trying. The enemies approach the player in waves consisting of enemies with a variety of attacks and health. The player must adapt to each enemy quickly, in order to defeat them. Your spell roster grows as you defeat further waves, but so do your enemies grow in might.
Alpha stage:
The current game has hand tracking with 2 possible motions which are pinching the index finger and thumb to move with teleporting locomotion and the second motion is activated by touching the middle finger and thumb. The second motion spawns a fireball in the specified direction. There is currently no proper game loop yet but 2 simple enemies are spawned at the start which move towards the player when they see the player. If the fireball connects with them they currently disappear. The arena is also now textured.
Final Build:
When you load into the game you are in the middle of an arena with your hands being tracked. You can cast various spells like fireball, shock arrow, thunderclap and teleportation, which all have different effects damage and cooldowns. At the 4 gates of the arena 10 randomly distributed goblins will be spawned which start moving towards the player to attack them. If the player defeats the first wave of goblins using the spells in their disposal the next wave will begin with 5 more goblins. Currently this continues until the player dies by being stabbed by the goblins where they are taken to a black screen with a menu where they can choose to give up or try again. The video is from the Unreal Engine editor preview.
Spells:
- Teleportation - The games locomotion, where you move | Cast by pinching with your index and thumb
- Fireball - A slower moving spell which explodes on impact doing Area of effect damage to nearby enemies | Cast by pinching with your middle finger and thumb
- Shock arrow - A faster spell which does more damage but is single target | Cast by pinching with any fingers on your left hand
- Thunderclap - A Short range Area of effect attack similar to the fireball | Cast by clapping your hands
Enemies:
- Goblin - Low health, quick enemy using hordes to overwhelm the player
Future improvement ideas:
- More enemy types
- Boss Fights
- More Feedback(More sounds, health bar, wave count, enemy count)
- Balance currently AOE spells are too strong and escaping enemies isn't a big challenge
- Quality of life for spells better indicators, aiming systems and adjusted hand tracking sensitivity
- Progression for spells e.g. roguelike upgrades, more spells and customizability
Links
Screenshots / media
Paper prototype
Milestone 2 video