Playful Prototypes

The Playful prototypes class consisted of 14 one-week sprints for the entire semester, where a new theme prompt was revealed at the start of each week and we were given a maximum of 10 hours to concept, designed, and build a playful interactive experience for the class to playtest in the following week. We were allowed to use any real-time interactive software of our choice, and I chose to focus on building up my Unity3D skillset.

The images here are from tow of my stronger prototypes built using OpenXR framework and the XR Interactive Toollkit. The art assets were mainly pulled from sample projects or Sketchfab as the focus of the class was around prototyping core interactions vs creating a “finished“ product. The first two images are from the theme “Do (Not) Look“ where I made a magic window puzzle game where the player must search for orange keys that are only been seen by looking through magic windows that aren’t always obvious. This project ended up being my most complete, but I learned that I needed a couple on-boarding puzzles before jumping into the more complex hidden window puzzles. The magic window effect is created using a stencil buffer test, with the stencil buffer order handled in Unity’s URP engine. The third image is from the theme “Dairy“ where I made a “Cut the Cheese“ drum kit that plays different fart sounds when the player cuts into the cheese wheels. Sophisticated? No. Hilarious? Yes. Sometimes colliders and audio triggers are all you need.