Interclean

Cultural exploration in virtual reality

Disclaimer: The game was made by Aalto University students as an extracurricular passion project. It is currently only a concept build and remains unfinished.

I had always been interested in XR and wanted to take any opportunity to explore the world of XR game development. Because of that I gathered a team of 3 programmers, 2 artists and a sound designer to collaborate with me in the development of our very first VR video game.

My role in the team was that of project manager. I have however organized research and interview and will now retroactively analyse the game from a UX Design point of view.

The Goal

While brainstorming with the team, we unanimously agreed to make something meaningful. After proposing our own individual ideas and discussing them, we agreed to create a VR game with the goal to explore diversity and invoke cultural empathy.

The Setting

In order to achieve our goal, we had further brainstorming sessions to settle on the storyline and setting of the game. There are certain criteria to meet.

The player would embody a character foreign to any and all cultures as to enhance the sense of novelty and discovery.
The character would need to look into and understand other cultures in order to proceed.

Keeping these points in mind, we settled on the plot.

Fewer Planets… Faster Galaxy

Interclean is an alien organization creating intergalactic highways. You, a new employee, are tasked with cleaning up space by destroying planet number 1 on your list. But as you make your way to the planet’s core you are trapped inside a human shelter. Suddenly, a normal day at your new job turns into an escape room as you use your alien powers to “read“ objects and figure your way towards the Earth’s nucleus.

The Process - From stories to puzzles

While we did have a multicultural team, we needed to research to better understand other cultures and histories. Therefore we sent out a questionnaire to collect data and stories on different topics such as food, clothing, traditions regarding the dead, wedding and celebrations and yes, even bathroom habits.

By the time development started we collected 58 answers from four different continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America). Following the questionnaire we contacted 15+ respondents that agreed to an interview to further discuss their answers.

The collected stories from the respondents were transformed into puzzles: the player would read an object in the room, entering the “memory space” and hearing the stories from the questionnaire respondents themselves, receiving clues on how to escape the level or “room space”. Having chosen a human shelter as the location of the game, we organized the puzzles into levels reflecting ordinary rooms in most people’s houses like kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and recreation/living room.

Gameplay

The game currently only features a single level: the player and its supervisor make their way down through the shelter when the elevator suddenly stops working. Trapped in one of the shelter’s kitchens, they must find a way to continue the journey.

Core Loop

There are three puzzles. The first one is based on a story from a respondent from Mexico, the second one from Korea and the third one from Tanzania. Each puzzle follows the same logic.

Player picks up an item (a memory or story object) in the kitchen and enters the “memory space“
The object owner’s memories play around the character as sound and images (with the respondents’ voiceover)
Player deducts from the memories what needs to be done in the shelter “room space“ to progress

Current Puzzle Structure and Issues

The game currently allows the player to start from any story object as all of them are immediately available. However, following playtesting session, this structure present a few problems.

There is no apparent order to the puzzles which confused most players when trying to figure out how to proceed, often taking up to 45 minutes to clear the level.
The player could technically jump straight to the ending of the game. The idea is that a big plant is covering the Ugali recipe, and when it’s fed some meat it shrinks back revealing the screen with the text. However, players were able to access the Tambiko bottle’s memory space from get go, know about the Ugali dish, look behind the plant and prepare it before finishing the other puzzles.

Updated Puzzle Structure and Solutions

The structure of the level could be more linear, and each story object could have an input and output.

Only one story object could be available at a single time. First the sugar skull, which gives the hint on how to open the cabinet. Once that is done, only then is the second story object available, and then the third once the second puzzle is solved.
The texture of the Ugali recipe should be replaced with a glitched version while the plant is covering it. Once the plant is fed and shrinks, it can go back to normal and reveal the steps to preparing the dish.

The hologram of a dish and glass hints where the offering of Ugali and alcohol need to be made.