Pipelines in virtual reality.

Project VRP is our third title developed for Science Alberta. The game takes place in a virtual reality setting where the player must manage various types of workers in order to design, build, and maintain a proper pipeline.

Here’s a trailer of how it looks in action:

Project VRP was created using Unity3D and can be freely played right here.

Below is a short case study of the project’s development:

The Overview

Following a successful completion of The CO2 Connection, we discussed various possible projects with the Science Alberta Foundation. In the end, Project VRP won out and the other proposals were slotted in for a later date.

The game required an extended pre-production process as well as a more complex feature set, so the timeline was set at 8 months with a budget increase of 25k over the previous titles. An iPhone port was also scheduled as part of the initial contract.

The Challenge

Project VRP was aimed at a slightly older audience than our previous Science Alberta games, and as such it needed a more mature look. In addition, its numerous scientific concepts were quite advanced but still needed to be conveyed through a single overarching experience.

The fully-3D environment not only allowed for some extra visual flair, but more accurately represented pipeline layouts.

The specific goal of the Project VRP was to showcase various types of jobs associated with pipeline production and upkeep. This extended to environmental challenges and acts of nature that had to be reflected in the main gameplay as well.

About half-way through development process, a change in priorities also took place. It was deemed that some scientific concepts needed to be explored in more depth, with the principles of corrosion, welding, and soil composition taking centre-stage.

The Solution

The Kelvin mascot was a central connecting theme between all the SAF titles, so we suggested a virtual reality environment to balance the cuteness of the Kelvins. This move allowed us to use darker palettes along with a more high-tech, industrial aesthetic.

Fairly early on in development, SAF ran a focus group with some grade-schoolers to gauge the effectiveness of this approach. The responses were overwhelmingly positive, with not a single complaint or request for alterations.

The codex let the players browse through a listing of all the units and their respective icons.

The goal of showcasing numerous professions was tackled via a list of individual “worker units,” each one possessing a single ability vital to pipeline construction and maintenance.

The difficulty in representing such a vast number of workers was tackled by separating the units into small groups, initially hinting at which workers should be used for which tasks, briefly introducing each group at the start of every level, and letting the player peek at a codex that contained info on the entire cast.

A bit of randomization was also added via weather effects that slowed down production and tied into real-world emergencies. This core game was then playtested with another group of grade-schoolers, and their feedback led us to add some extra polish to the tutorials and include a few additional visual effects to make the mechanics more intuitive.

The minigames not only tackled some subject matter in more depth, but also served to punctuate the ending phase of each level.

When development of the game was temporarily halted due to a change in focus, we worked with SAF on how to best incorporate the new goals. It was eventually decided that adding minigames to better showcase some of the jobs would be the best solution, and these were seamlessly slotted into the end of each production phase.

To minimize the costs of the delay and the extra features, the iPhone port was removed from the feature-list. This covered the majority of the work, and in the end the budget was increased by only 7k.

The Results

The final version of Project VRP was very well received by the sponsors, with SAF inquiring into possible future ports to iOS and other mobile devices.

Project VRP is well underway, and we’ve just finished our tech demo milestone. We’ve also prototyped most of the gameplay and are getting ready to push the content, so it seems like a good time for an update.

First up, a series of character illustrations and our initial HUD mockup:

All of the worker images will be present in the game, so they had to be a bit more polished than a typical piece of concept art. The main challenge here was using the original Kelvin design to create a standardized “virtual reality” look, all the while making the workers look distinct.

And now for a couple of in-game screens:

As you can see the HUD has changed quite a bit, and we now have an actual map/model renderer. It was tricky developing the proper shaders to get a look similar to games such as Tron and Darwinia because we’re limited by the eventual iOS port. Still, I’m quite happy with the map’s glow-y, pulsating highlights, and we plan on adding various other visuals in the future to make the virtual world really come to life.

The cast and crew of The CO2 Connection.

The CO2 Connection is an educational video game developed for Science Alberta. The title centers on building a giant pipeline capable of transporting vast amounts of CO2. This is achieved by exploring numerous areas, gathering resources, smartly planning the pipeline’s route, and completing various minigames.

Here is Science Alberta’s trailer showcasing all these elements in action:

The CO2 Connection was created using Unity3D and can be freely played at the Wonderville website.

Below is a short case study of the project’s development:

The Overview

Following the successful delivery of Kelvin’s Space Ranch, we immediately began production on The CO2 Connection. Its budget was identical to our first work-for-hire project (coming in at just under 100k CAD following taxes), but with a slightly longer timeline of 5 months. The schedule was extended to officially include an iOS port and allow for more extensive prototyping.

The Challenge

The key concepts that needed to be captured in the game were the extraction, compression, transportation and storage of CO2. These were all based on drastically different processes, and in turn needed to expose various educational tid-bits.

Character faces -- even those of animals -- helped to add personality to the dialogue and drive the player forward.

On the technical side of things, we were obligated to create 3 different versions of the game: one for the browser, one for a high-powered PC cabinet, and one for the iPhone/iPod Touch. All these versions included drastically different technical specifications, requiring the game to be very scalable. The PC and the iOS devices also utilized a touch-screen interface, placing further constraints on the design.

The last technical obstacle was the art style itself. A whimsical, 2D look was chosen, but its aesthetics were not supported by Unity’s core feature-set.

Finally, due to Science Alberta’s intension of presenting The CO2 Connection at various public events, the game had to be easy enough for anyone to pick up and play on the show floor.

The Solution

After analyzing the 4 key concepts outlined by the sponsors, we proposed an approach that focused on building a giant pipeline. The main reason for this was that although all the necessary topics required drastically different gameplay, the transportation of CO2 was a common link among them; the CO2 is first extracted from pollutants, then compressed for transportation, and finally delivered to specific sites for storage.

The idea of building a transportation network was deep enough to carry the overall game, and it also lent itself well to either mouse or touch controls. The remaining concepts were then added on top as end-level minigames, and their distribution let us space out all the educational tid-bits.

Each level contains a handful of CO2-producing locations that must be connected to the pipeline.

As the core structure of the game was fleshed out, it became clear that we would have to do some extra work in order to properly capture the desired art style.

Unity is optimized for rendering 3D environments, but its 2D capabilities are rather inefficient and mostly limited to UI. What’s more, we had 3 different builds to worry about, and the iOS platforms were not nearly powerful enough to smoothly render all our 2D objects.

Our solution was to create a custom 2D library that actually utilized Unity’s 3D capabilities. Each map-tile, decoration, pop-up window, etc., became a texture for a flat, dynamically generated mesh, in turn allowing us to draw layers upon layers of static and animated artwork. This wholly 3D approach also made it effortless to change the game’s resolution and aspect ratio for any desired platform.

Periodic upgrades helped to spread out the gameplay elements while providing a steady stream of rewards.

Finally, we worked alongside Heather Desurvire of Behavioristics to make sure The CO2 Connection was as intuitive as possible. This was an ongoing process that touched upon numerous concepts such as clear story-goals, context-sensitive cursors, audio and visual feedback for player actions, self-evident UI icons, and many, many more.

Explicit tutorials were also included and consisted of large image sequences with just a little bit of text. To complement these, an extra “?” button was added to each screen that displayed more thorough instructions.

In the end, the kids tasked with playtesting the game — even some who did not yet know how to read — were able to play it all the way through.

The Results

Much like Kelvin’s Space Ranch, The CO2 Connection was successfully completed on time and applauded by its sponsors. Immediately following its last deliverable, Science Alberta contracted Incubator Games to do a third game in the Kelvin series while laying out a plan for future sequels.