puncta
everybody’s sad is a therapeutic and kinetic VR experience for the HTC Vive in which the player must use intuitive motion and pose-based controls to make sad, alive objects happy. Many of the tasks the objects ask the player to perform will require the player to use their body in a way that is typically considered strange for VR, and many of these tasks will be potentially uncomfortable for the player. (An example of this is a sad chair that wants the player to sit on it; to make the chair happy, the player must pretend to actually sit in the chair by squatting in real life.) Many of the object characters are unhealthily codependent, relying on the player for their every want and need. After the player discovers the bathroom mirror and sees that they are sad as well, they learn mechanics for consent and self care in order to make themselves happy, including saying “no” out loud to reject tasks asked of them by toxic characters.
We wanted to provide players with an experimental VR experience that pushes the envelope of what VR games can be. By making players use their voices and bodies in new ways, we provide them with a more immersive experience in which they can discover the delicate balance between caring for others and themselves. Through this game, we wanted to emphasize the importance of balancing caring for others and caring for yourself, as well as innovating what games can do in VR.
everybody’s sad is being developed by students in both the Art & Design: Games & Playable Media and Computer Science: Game Design department at UC Santa Cruz, and we plan to release our game in June 2018.
Credits
Aubrey Isaacman – Lead Designer, Lead Producer
Jared Pettitt – Lead Designer, Lead Producer
Raymond James Reedy – Writer, Artist
Nathaniel Suriawijaya – Programmer & Designer
Caleb Valdez – Sound Designer
Andrew Gwinner – Lead Programmer
Gio Benedetti – Music Maker
Evie Chang – Art Director
Liam Dugard – 3D Modeler
Maxwell Taylor – 3D Modeler and texture artist
Noriaki Nakano – Programmer, Lead Graphics Renderer
Gangjun Ha – Programmer
