ATTENTION
10.2020
ATTENTION is a 3D game which made to simulate the social anxiety experience.
The loading page of ATTENTION
Below is the proposal I made at the beginning. The original name of the work is PERSONA, as I would like to make a 3D game about the different personalities of the contemporary people especially my peers when they are suffering from social anxiety.
The original proposal
But during the developing time, I found that, about the initial idea there are some aspects which did not make sense. Especially for an interactive game, it missed the most important part — interactions. How to make the interactions working and also having really close connection with the subject “social anxiety” became the primary problem I need to fix.
Therefore I came up with the “social anxiety simulator” idea and changed the name to “ATTENTION”. Simply to let the audience experienced the feeling of drawing attention as they interacted with this project, thus to experienced the social anxiety.
After I completed the logic part, the first immersive experience jumped in my mind is to do this as an Augmented Reality game.
The screenshot taken in Unity
The AR game prototype
The screen recording for testing
However, as I finished the function part of the app, I found that it is quite difficult to share the Unity made app to the others unless I upload my app to the App Store and Google Play. Besides, as I only own one laptop which running under the Mac system, it is difficult for me to made an Android version for those audiences who do not using iOS devices. So I decided to make a 3D game finally.
The overall development is generally successful, as I ran into few bugs and problems in the script and material parts but got them fixed quickly. I started with making the basic model in MAYA.
The screenshot taken in MAYA
Then came to the most major part of this project is the interaction as the user click randomly on the screen to spawn a model. I wrote a simple script to achieve that effect. Then I put this model in Unity, adding materials.
The screenshot taken in Unity
Then came to the most major part of this project is the interaction as the user click randomly on the screen to spawn a model. I wrote a simple script to achieve that effect.
The screenshot taken in Visual Studio
And I also attached the chewing, slavering 3D surrounded sound to the model, when it is spawned by lick, the sound will superimposed together. Besides, I use the particle system in Unity to complete the eyeballs bubbling visual effect. The size and position of those eyeballs keep changing in the range as I set. Then I recorded my own eyes staring at the camera as well as my speaking mouth, edited and duplicated the two video to one component to create a creepy feeling. Then added the videos on the surrounding walls, as the walls attached with bubbling eyeballs became squeezing to the center, the “being watched and judged” feeling became more intense. What’s more, I also add the talking sound of crowd as a background sound, and used strong colored lights and materials. Last but not least, I using the UI component to make the starting scene for the basic introductions in the game.
The screenshots taken in ATTENTION
That’s basically the whole producing processes of this project. Though I made a really huge change comparing the proposal project from the final one, it generally followed the steps I listed on the proposal as made model first then spend the most of time in Unity to add functions, interactions and details, last but not least, testing.
General speaking, I think I need to do more research not only in the content and narrative aspects but also in the technical aspect, as this time I spend some unnecessary time on changing the format of this project. If I realized that I might not able to find an easy way to share the Unity made app earlier, I can spend more time thinking about the details to add in the scene and concentrate on the visual detailing part.
Above are the final documentation, analysis and reflection about the project ATTENTION. If you want to experience this game by yourself, you can download it here: https://stelllllla.itch.io/attention
Thanks for watching
