- Development Overview

In this project, we designed an "impossible space" that requires VR equipment to experience - Meowmeow Space Station.  This is a different kind of space station, in this game, the player will The player will be the owner of Meowmeow, who runs a farm in space. Overall, our design process was relatively smooth, except for some problems we encountered in the early stages regarding VR headsets, we quickly reached unity in determining the game theme and game mechanics, which is to design a space station that includes Meowmeow and some wicked gravity effects like walking on the wall, etc..

- Playtesting Feedback

John

1. The rotation and snap is worth keeping, but we could fix it if we want the play experience to be more smooth.
2. The messed up gravity after stepping on the wall is worth keeping too. It provides a wicked feeling and it’s fun to just watch the objects flying all around.
3. The environment building should be the next focal point.
4. Moving speed is too slow .
5. It’s cool to look down .
6. The flipping is cool.
7. More stuffs in the environment.
8. Mechanics: path walking not falling the ground and puzzle.

Percy

1. The earth is too small and close.
2. Walking balance

Jeffery 

1. Player is floating when they are not in any trigger.
2. The cube feels small for now.
3. The player can change the gravity maybe?

Emily

1. Add a mirror and surprises when looking down.
2. Keep the flipped view of pink wall.

Yifan 

1. Walking speed is too slow
2. Disable the shadow for hands
3. Debug the flipped view on pink wall or keep it for mechanic 
4. Floating in the air will be cool
5. Throwing things at a certain point and float to it.

- Development Docs

Regarding the design of the overall theme of the game, we have made a very interesting shift in our thinking. At the beginning, we thought of getting inspiration from the movie Inception, using the direction of gravity in the dream world shown in the movie as the basis for designing an impossible space. Immediately after, in the first week of progress, we got some results that were different from what we thought at the beginning. We got a space with different gravity directions on each of the four walls, but it didn't look like a scene from a dream world, but more like a space station. Then we thought of Cooper Station in another science fiction movie Interstellar, which was a circular space station with gravity in all directions in the interior space, and people could walk on the walls.

After deciding on the theme of the game, we first focused on the programming part. We added a trigger for the four walls of the space station, when the player walks on the trigger, the real rotation is actually the space station itself - but this will bring the player an illusion of walking up the wall. Immediately afterwards, we started the environment design, collecting many 3D models that match our theme.

In terms of the environment design, we decided to blend the sci-fi style and the low poly casual style together in our Meowmeow Space Station. The appearance of the space station is very sci-fi, the player can even see the steel space station engine through space.  However, the interior environment of the space station is indeed a vibrant farm. In the space composed of gravity in four directions, which are up, down, left, and right, there are distributed the player's cabin, the player's pet cat Meowmeow (and of course our old friend), various farm animals, wooden carts, dog kennels and so on. We moved the farm town on Earth into this Meowmeow Space Station, and made adjustments to gravity that you would never imagine: in this space, players can walk on the walls, and even the ceiling! At the same time, in the environment design, we took into account John's suggestion to design some "roadblocks" for our space station so that the player could not easily reach the other wall. We combined the barriers with wayfinding instructions to limit the player's movement but give them the maximum freedom of movement.

The last thing we set out to design was the game's "playable" mechanics. We introduced our old friend, Meow meow, and designed a number of objects that could be grabbed by the player, i.e. food that cats love to eat. In the game, the player has to collect food and walk through a rotating space station with different gravity to bring the food to Meowmeow. However, since our intention was to create an impossible space with an immersive experience rather than a full game, we kept this game mechanic and did not design more game play aspects. After the player brings food to Meowmeow, he will get feedback from it. We think this is enough in terms of gameplay.