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TOWER DEFENSE

VR GAME DESIGN

Somewhere on another planet, two alien explorers face hordes of energy-hungry robots.
Can they keep the teleport gate open so they can escape to another planet?

Studio

  • Brainz Immersive

Crew

  • Robin Pultera
    Project manager

  • Kryštof Šuk
    Unity developer / Artist

  • Thomas Tumosa
    Unity developer / multiplayer

  • Ondřej Pultera
    Unity developer

  • Lucie Jančová
    3D Character designer / Artist

  • Petr Kollarčík
    3D & Motion designer

  • Jan Brukner
    Art Director / Game designer / idea maker

What I Did

  • Concept Design

  • Unity / Visual development

  • 3D Assets Design
    (weapons, enviro, robots)

  • Matte painting

2019

Another planet
Two defenders of the tower
and hordes of attack bots...

Design development of a two-player "room scale VR" game prototype and QUEST headset at studio Brainz Immersive. Room Scale VR is built around sharing the space where players are physically located, so that together they can share an even more intense gaming experience.

CONCEPT / GAME

At the beginning of the development of the test prototype, my colleagues and I agreed on the concept of a "tower defense" game. My task was to design the overall game design. I selected one game mechanism from a range of game mechanics and came up with a simple plot and game design, game mechanics and motivations.

Everything in the game is based on gaining and losing energy. The goal of the players is to defend an interplanetary portal for a set amount of time until it is charged and opened. Of course, this task is made difficult for our pair of heroes by hordes of robots who want to steal energy from the portal and attack it like "wasps on honey". If the players manage to hold their position, they can use the charged portal to move to the next planet(higher level).

SEE MORE ABOT THIS PROJECT.

How did the whole project come about?
Previews of the concepts, preproduction, 3D designs and the story...

PLAYGROUND
ACTION
MAIN CHARACTERS
WEAPONS
ALIEN ROBOTS
FINAL CONCEPT

All in CASE STUDY BELOW...

The Playground

I designed the play space classically as a tall tower. The tower naturally defines the players' space of movement. At the same time, it adds to the drama of the natural fear of heights and opens up a larger game view. The original intention was to divide the tower into two game parts. Each player was to protect one part, so they could cover each other's backs and support each other in transferring the missing energy for weapon functionality.

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The Action

As already mentioned the main driver is energy. Energy is represented by the Energy Spheres, which are logically and visibly located in the front of the boots, on top of the portal and in the weapons. They also serve as indicators of energy status and unit affiliation. Your energy is the color blue and the robot energy is the color red. You don't kill anyone in the game, you only take energy. This is transferred between players, attacking bots, weapons and the portal. The goal is to hold on and fend off attacks from bots trying to drain your energy. If players manage to hold their position, they can use the charged portal to move to the next planet(higher level).

Everything in the game is based on gaining and losing energy. The goal of the players is to defend an interplanetary portal for a set amount of time until it is charged and opened.
Of course, this task is made difficult for our pair of heroes by hordes of robots who want to steal energy from the portal and attack it like "wasps on honey".

Your energy is the color blue and the robot energy is the color red. You don't kill anyone in the game, you only take energy.
This is transferred between players, attacking bots, weapons and the portal.

Main Characters by Lucie Jančová

The main characters you play as are unspecified explorers, prospectors from another planet. We adapted the design to the (then) limited VR capabilities, so the characters don't have designed lower limbs, but rather float. Lucie Jančová created an imaginative design and complete realization of the 3D characters. These are mix biological creatures and a robot. Below you can see the result, inspiration and designs.

DESIGN / Energetic Weapons

Players are equipped with a pair of weapons that can drain the energy of robots, thus knocking them out of action. I designed the first weapon as an "Energetic rope gun", here a sort of gun that fires an energy reel that captures the robots' energy. I designed this weapon for ranged combat. The second weapon is the "Fist Thrower", which is designed for close combat. This allows you to snatch an energy ball from a robot attacker at the last moment and possibly throw it to your teammate. Below you can see videos of the weapons in action and their real-time 3D models on sketchfab.

First weapon is "Energetic rope gun", here a sort of gun that fires an energy reel that captures the robots' energy.
I designed this weapon for ranged combat.

The second weapon is the "Fist Thrower",
which is designed for close combat.

DESIGN / Alien robots

I kept the design of the robotic invaders very simple given the prototype. It was more about placeholders for future possible more sophisticated adversaries. The main idea was to have a noticeable red energy sphere on the robots - a vulnerable part of the robot that you can remove and use to disable the robot. The minimalist design I took inspiration from comics/ABC magazines. :)

FINAL GAME CONCEPT

Everything was put together by Thomas Tumosa, Ondřej Pultera and Kryštof Šuk within the Unity game engine. The final game concept ended up having some changes and many concessions from the original plan and stayed with the prototype. In the video below, you can watch the first multi-person playtesting of the game by Brainz Studios colleagues in the Pilots cinema in Prague. What the future fate of the game concept will be is currently unknown to me...