CS 184: Computer Graphics and Imaging, Spring 2018

Final Project : Virtual Reality Bullet Hell

Caleb Wyllie, 26733519

Jonathan Tan, 3031980108

Ray Pan, 3032030795

Index

Overview

This project will be an implementation of a virtual reality bullet hell game, where players play by dodging incoming projectiles with their bodies and fighting back by shooting projectiles of their own from their player model. This will be done in VR, and we plan on using phone based cardboard VR for initial development.

Problem Description

There are multiple problems we’re looking to tackle in this project. The first suite of problems comes with general game development: how do we create convincing environments, immersive gameplay, and challenging enemies? How do we convert player input from the input device’s accelerometer/gyroscope to reflect controls in the game? Could we possibly allow players to use alternate forms of input (keyboard/mouse, gamepad) while using their phones as their visual device? Also, what happens if you die in the game? Do you die in real life? We’ll likely be building our game with Unity because of how extensible and user-friendly it is, tackling all these concerns through asset creation and programming the game’s internal logic.

We would also need to combat motion sickness from playing the game. Simply drawing sprites onto the phone camera’s output probably would be a poor idea (in a manner akin to augmented reality), as it would be extremely disconcerting for the player. We’d definitely need a 3D environment suited for the game.

Finally, even though there are similar games for VR devices such as the Rift and the Vive, we are seeing if we can make a playable game without these expensive headsets as to lower the barrier to entry.

Goals/Deliverable

What we plan to deliver

We plan on delivering a working/playable game, where players accrue points by staying alive and lose upon being hit by too many bullets. We’ll quantify how well the game performs by how playable it is for the average person, as well as how much fun people have playing it. Everything past this working copy of a game would basically be adding extra features to our engine, as well as taking time to create additional assets.

What we hope to deliver

This project will be our first foray into any sort of game development. We’d ideally like to uphold the bullet hell “standard”, i.e. making a game that has at least as many of the mechanics and bells/whistles of games from the Touhou project, the original creators of the bullet hell genre of games. This includes but is not limited to: multiple levels, multiple enemies, BGM, powerups, and more. Additionally, we’d like to explore cooperative or perhaps competitive gameplay as extreme stretch goals.

Schedule

Week One
- Asset creation: Environment, Enemy models
- Acqure cardboard-based VR gear
Week Two
- Game engine development
- Reading phone accelerometer input
- Hit registration (Enemy hits Player)
Week Three
- Additional hit registration (Player hits Enemy)
- More game logic
  - Increasing difficulty
  - Respawning enemies
  - Score counter for enemies killed
Week Four
- Levels, BGM, Stretch Goals