Ludum Dare 36 – Cat Ball VR

By | August 30, 2016


Yes, another Ludum Dare is finished! A few weeks ago, our friend Sean Siem lent us his Vive DK VR system. PG and I got to play around with it and tried a bunch of free demo from Steam. For this Ludum Dare session, I decided to make a VR experience, involving cat. During HoloHack, there was one team that use cat on its app to help with elder patients. A couple of my brewing game designs also involve cats, so this was perfect. As previously, I decided to work solo again, since it tremendously improve my experience with development in Unity.

When the theme of Ancient Technology was announced, I was not thinking of alien technology or the like. Instead, I was thinking of old technology humans came up with, like lever, pulley, etc. I looked up some information online, and what really strike me was mechanism for hidden rooms in tomb and such. So I came up with a simple design where a player is trapped in a room, with a cat, and need this creature”s help to escape the room.

As previously, I concentrated to get level design and mechanic to work first before even bothering with doing art. Also, learning from past experience, I did preparation by brushing up more on my C# skill and got to know some toolkits available for HTC Vive. This prep really helped during the game jam. By submission time, I can proudly say I have made a VR experience. With a kitten. Temporary 3D art is added at last minute. I had 5 minutes left by the time I submit the game, haha. Oh, as before, Niki Wonoto graciously let me use one of his beautiful compositions.

You can find the demo here. Trigger warning: it contains a cat, darkness, and might cause motion sickness.

Kitten chasing a ball