Date Night
Solo - VR StealthMy role : GameDesigner + Manager/Producer
Engine : Unity
More detailed presentation https://charlotteinfos.wixsite.com/shouil/date-night
Trailer of the game
Date Night is a VR game, where you play seated and move around mimicking the movements of a wheelchair.
Armed with everyday items from your nursing home, run away from your night nurse in chie and get ready for a night of love.
It is a game I pitched and then got to develop as part of my 1st year of study at Enjmin.
The principle is simple : You are an elderly person living in a nursing home.
But, the daily life gets boring, so you surf on dating apps.
And guess what? You just got a match!
Escape from your nursing home to enjoy a pleasant date with your chosen one.
Your dating options
I had 2 main roles on Date Night :
- Game Designer
- Manager/Producer
Raphael (Programmer) and myself making people test the game during the Laval Virtual salon
As the sole Game Designer on the project, I had to confide in my team to better understand their possibilities and desires, while maintaining my vision of the game.
I wanted to keep 3 things :
- A VR controller that perfectly mimics the movements of a wheelchair
- A main mechanic that allows for emergent gameplay
- The dating theme
Ilan, the gameplay programmer of the project made an amazing work on the controller aspect.
And thanks to Arthur, our ergonomist and UX researcher, we managed to lower the motion sickness induced by it using little tricks like speed management and vignetting.
Detail of the controllers by Ilan (Programmer) and gif of the in-game 1st prototype
Then with Anna, our Game Artist, I worked on the Level Design and Level Art of the nursing home plus all of the narrative aspects of the game.
She made all of the visual assets of the game.
I then integrated them in the engine (collider and behaviour included) and designed the golden path our players would follow.
Top-down view of the salon + In-engine
Then I had one last jobs to do with Raphael, our second programmer :
Create an AI that the player will have fun trying to flee from using the items scattered in the levels.
We didn’t have much time to iterate on it, but managed to have an experience that provoked emotions in the players. They really got scared of the AI and really had fun running away, tossing every plate and books they could find.
Details on the AI
Date Night allowed me to learn immensely about the work of a Game Designer and I am thankful for the team’s involvement. I’m proud of the game for all it has taught me.