The Lunar Light: Discovery - UE5.2 VR
Alpha Gameplay Video (1 Player)
Alpha gameplay recording with one player. Audio muted for player privacy.
My Responsibilities
The Lunar Light: Discovery is a 10-player, interactive on-site VR experience for the company Back to Space, powered by Unreal Engine 5.2. Customers visit a physical site and enter a 1:1 mapped virtual lunar world to journey through the story. The experience capitalizes on the Meta Quest 3’s hand tracking feature to drive player input and environment interaction. My responsibilities included:
Developed the Game Design Document for the entire virtual experience with PM and client direction.
Created a Unified Modeling Language (UML) Document to plan the development architecture.
Created and iterated the event flow using UE5 Blueprints and developer tools for the Meta Quest 3 platform.
Prototyped, tested, and iterated the gameplay systems using UE5 Blueprints and various UE5 tools and plugins.
Solved various tech problems, relating to multiplayer networking, performance, and functionality.
Development Breakdown:
GDD and UML
Experience Flow
Prototyping Systems
Networking
Problem Solving and Iteration
GDD and UML
Prior to starting development, we created and delivered 3 documents to the client focusing on specific areas of development. Another developer focused on the tech stack document outlining the technical specifications and limitations of the project, while the PM and myself created the Game Design Document and Unified Modeling Language documents. The GDD included:
Descriptions of each stage of the experience.
Detailed order of events for each section.
Descriptions of the virtual and physical environments to be made.
Storyboard panels to clarify visual intent.
Prototyping Systems
Interactions
There are two main interaction types featured in the Back to Space experience: Virtual and physical. Virtual interactions refer to the virtual touchscreens that players may interact with to customize their avatar and complete puzzles. Physical interactions refer to actions that players use a physical medium to achieve, such as pressing a button. It was my responsibility to concept the architecture for these interactions and develop the gameplay around them.
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Sequencing
gregre
Networking
Designing and prrototyping the gameplay systems was primarily handled by me. My development contributions included:
Creating the character controller.
Developing the game loop.
Building a prop destruction system.
Creating score and resource systems.
Setting up menus and UI.
The bus controller was prototyped using the road blockout of the level, after which I began working on a game loop. The level runs on a designer-set timer and tracks the player’s score during play. A reputation resource bar on the side of the UI drains during play, but may be replenished in small increments by hitting various props around the level. Hitting an NPC walking around causes the reputation to take a hit.
Problem Solving and Iteration
As the project lead and vision holder for the game, I established the art style and modeled many assets including the school bus and all destructible props. I directed 2 other artists on the creation of buildings and other assets. The overall flat art style served to allow for more development time. I modeled assets in Maya and used Substance Painter and Photoshop for textures. Interactable props are given more model and texture detail to stand out to players.