Games Designer
Implementation & Interaction
Though Network was always intended to be more of an interactive film than a game, there are elements of interactivity. The team wanted to ensure that even those with limited gaming experience would be able to experience it, so I made use of the Quest 2’s hand tracking functionality to eliminate the need for controllers.
Players use their own hands to open sprites surrounding them, swelling the music and opening up the root system as they progress. Using one’s own hands was also in keeping with the themes of the experience, that of presence in nature and connectedness.
The team wanted to transport the player over a root system as it grew, so I implemented a spline system of very long gradual curves, ensuring that the player always had a root growing out beneath and in front of them, up in the direction of travel, to naturally focus their vision on, in an effort to reduce the chance of motion sickness as much as was possible.
Where possible the player is guided towards the necessary actions with visual and audio clues, giving the player the chance to experiment and work things out, before voiceover is used to spell it out to the player. Unopened sprites will intermittently chirp, allowing the player to find them in 3D space if they are out of view and unnoticed. A player who takes too long to lift their hands along with the god-like figures will be coaxed into the motion as above.
Since the directors wanted the subsequent forest scene to have no interaction, I ensured that the player’s hands dissolve whilst they are praying, before the scene transition while there is the greatest chance that their hands are in full view. This was to help prevent the player for searching for their hands when the visuals fade back in, and prevent a feeling that the experience had “bugged out” when it had not.
Accessibility
The team was keen to make Network as accessible as possible, especially given that by its very nature of requiring a heavy headset certain people would already be excluded. As well as the default hand tracking mode, I developed a gaze tracking mode where the player interacts with the sprites by focusing on them. Since the praying section towards the end of the games requires the player to copy a gesture, this section simply proceeds after a short timer in gaze mode.