Pixel Ripped: 2D-игра старой школы в VR
When Ana Ribeiro quit her steady government job, sold everything and flew from São Luis to London to study game design back in 2010, her family and friends thought she had lost her mind. In the end, though–with the help of the Unity engine and a healthy dose of talent, energy and optimism–Ribeiro was vindicated. She now has a collaboration deal with ARVORE Immersive Experiences, and her Pixel Ripped game is winning fans, recognition and awards even prior to its release.
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Игра
Pixel Ripped 1989, a retro 2D game blended with a thrilling VR ride
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Цель
Создать веселую 2D-игру в духе старой школы с современными технологиями VR.
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Платформы
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Количество сотрудников
1, плюс недавнее сотрудничество со студией Arvore (14).
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Регион
Сан-Паулу, Бразилия.
Ana Ribeiro, Founder, Project Manager, and Lead Developer at Pixel Ripped, talks about developing a hybrid 2D and VR game.
2D-игра в стиле ретро с захватывающими элементами VR
Inspired by a combination of the warm, nostalgic feelings she had for the Game Boy titles of her childhood plus her excitement about the latest virtual reality (VR) technology, Ana Ribeiro had a vision of a game within a game. However, creating a retro 2D game within a VR experience did present certain technical challenges. The Unity platform has enabled her to tackle those challenges by making it significantly easier to polish the final product and keep the frame rate up.
The results:
- Could create new demo-test versions within weeks
- Increased frames per second (fps) by 20 with the help of Asset Store tools
- Asset Store tools saved months of work
- Featured at Made with Unity Showcase at Unite Austin 2017
- Collaboration deal with ARVORE Immersive Experiences
- Multiple award-winner, including Best VR game at Amaze Festival, Indiecade 2015, and Proto Awards nomination for Most Innovative VR game and Best Original Score
Как совместить традиции с инновациями
Sit down, put on your VR headset, and get ready to travel back to 1989. Look around: you’re back in high school, kid, and your goal is to complete levels on your handheld game console without getting caught by your nagging teacher.
“I grew up playing games like Mega Man, Super Mario, and Tetris, and I wanted to see if I could use the possibilities of VR technology to let people travel back in time and get that same warm feeling I have for those games,” says Ribeiro. “I wanted people to laugh and feel good and have fun by being transported to the 80s, to the spirit of playing games in the past, the way I remember it.”
Ana meets Unity, and it’s love at first sight
Pixel Ripped started as Ribeiro's final-year game design project at the National Film and Television School in London, where she was first introduced to Unity. In the beginning of her studies, though, she didn’t have the benefit of the game engine.
“When I started learning how to make games, it was from scratch. I had to build everything. I had to build the engine, the camera, everything from scratch. It felt like if you wanted to bake a cake, you had to build the whole kitchen. But I didn’t want to build the oven, build the pumps, the kitchen and the walls just to bake one cake; I just wanted to get to my favorite part. I wanted to make the game.”
So when Ribeiro was introduced to Unity, she says she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Some of my fellow students were complaining: ‘Oh my God, we have to write a line of code.’ But I was so excited. I was like: ‘Wow, everything’s ready; I can just put the camera there. I can just grab the physics and add it. It was love at first sight,” she says.
Быстрое прототипирование и тестирование идут рука об руку
Когда Ана начала разрабатывать Pixel Ripped, у нее была идея о ностальгическом путешествии во времени в эру игр ее юности. Чтобы увидеть, что необходимо для реализации и на чем стоит сосредоточиться, она проводила тестирование с помощью своих сокурсников.
«Unity мне очень помогла ввиду возможности быстро собирать демоверсии. Тестируя их, я отлавливала ошибки и выявляла элементы, которые не нравились людям, и исправляла их. Unity отлично подходит для прототипирования, она позволяет мне создавать новую версию за несколько недель».
Не убивайте меня, я просто ее парень!
Во время тестирования Ана испытала два прозрения о лучших и худших элементах своей игры. Первое — игроки терпеть не могли одного персонажа. Ане захотелось сделать игру забавнее, добавив парня главной героини игры, танцующего перед телевизором.
«Мне показалось это смешным, ведь это как в реальной жизни: ты сидишь играешь, а перед телевизором постоянно кто-то ходит и мешает. Но люди буквально ненавидели этого парня. Они желали ему зла. Я насчитала под 40 человек, которые хотели его прикончить», — говорит она.
Она учла это, избавилась от надоедливого персонажа и сосредоточилась на той части демоверсии, которая понравилась всем.
«Сначала тот небольшой отрывок игры, который всем понравился, не должен был стать чем-то важным. Это тот момент, когда вы наблюдаете в виде от первого лица за героиней, которая выходит из одной приставки и запрыгивает в другую», — говорит Ана.
«Это занимало максимум 5 секунд, потом вы уже играли в другую игру. Но все, абсолютно все, говорили: "Честное слово, момент, когда персонаж выходит из игры — лучший"».
2D и VR вместе и навсегда
Ribeiro now had the key to producing the right atmosphere that she was looking for . She now knew how to give people that happy, old-school gaming feeling mixed with modern technology. At least in terms of the narrative and gameplay. But there were still technical challenges to overcome.
“The biggest challenge has always been having two games within one,” Ribeiro says. “You have a 2D game, which is a jumping platform, like Mega Mario. And this game has separate scenes, separate graphics, separate music, sound, code, everything. And then you have the 3D world of the 80s classroom. So the programming behind these two game universes, plus the VR, has meant that it’s always been a challenge to increase the fps and keep it on a doable quality for releasing the game and not making people sick.”
The solution was to go through the game and polish everything in order to make it as light as possible. But that requires time, resources, and the right tools. With that in mind, Ribeiro says that the Unity Asset Store has been invaluable enabling her to increase fps by 20.
A lesson learned the hard way: Look on the Unity Asset Store first!
Ribeiro learned the hard way that it made sense to browse the Unity Asset Store for the right tools before building something on her own. She recalls one particular incident that really drove this lesson home when still at school working on the project with one of her fellow students.
“We were trying to model this Christmas tree, and we saw one for five dollars on the Asset Store. But we really wanted to make everything in the whole 3D part of the game ourselves, including all the modeling. If we had just bought the tree on the store, it would’ve saved us a month of work and stress, and a little bit of disappointment, trying to get it right. I’ll never forget that,” Ribeiro says.
“Now I just always go to the Asset Store straightaway first. If I find it, and I think it will save me time, something I need in the game, I just buy it, and it’s done. That’s that. Sometimes you can even find something for free. I’d say the Asset Store saved me around three months of work at the very least.”
She has used a number of Asset Store tools for effects to create the unique mix of 80’s nostalgia and futuristic time-travel feel of Pixel Ripped. For example, she used Shader Forge to produce the pixelation at the start of the game when you travel back in time. She has also used Skybox for around 300 image effects. Ribeiro even found an asset specifically for the nostalgic feel of her game, which creates an 80s-style blue-camera effect.
Эта функция сделала их жизнь намного проще
Еще одной особенностью Unity, которая сэкономила Ане и ее помощникам много времени и нервов, была поддержка мультиплатформенности.
«Мы хотим выпустить игру на всех основных платформах, поэтому нам очень помогает возможность просто пойти и выбрать, к примеру, PlayStation, Oculus и ПК. Это сильно облегчает нам жизнь».
Работая с VR с самого начала проекта, Ана отслеживала изменения этой технологии и поддержку в Unity.
«В процессе разработки игры гарнитуры не раз менялись, и это очень-очень хорошо, что Unity поддерживает их все. В самом начале, в старые-добрые деньки, было необходимо все загрузить и добавить все плагины; я помню, как мне приходилось менять одну за одной все камеры в игре. Теперь все интегрировано. Нужно лишь поставить галочку Virtual reality support и беспокоиться только о дизайне игры».
