By: Raymond Corona
(2) SlashingSavant - VR Adventure (notion.so)
Introduction: Slashing Savant is my take on a VR version of Fruit Ninja. The project aims to use VR technology in order to create a more intuitive, hands on version of Fruit Ninja. By combining classic gameplay mechanics with innovative VR features, Slashing Savant offers users the ability to slice fruits, nuts, and bombs in a VR environment, not just with one hand, but with both!
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Design: In Slashing Savant, UX design played a major role in ensuring that it was appropriate for players. Having the correct sizing for each aspect of the game is extremely important and I made sure to take this into consideration especially for the Start of the game.
Using the VR controllers, players are able to accurately slice each object as it approaches your swords (in 3rd person). Additionally, the user interface (UI) was designed to be clear, providing essential information such as score, health, and lives remaining without distracting from the gameplay.
Technical Challenges and Solutions: During the development process, several technical challenges were encountered, including optimizing performance for VR platforms and implementing realistic slicing mechanics that actually work. Based on my past experience with Unity projects, I knew that this task would not be simple. I couldn’t find a tutorial that would directly show me how to make this game step by step, but I did find one to use a reference in order to get the dimensions in a better place.
Finding appropriate code was the more difficult challenge, but after breaking down each script that I needed, it became possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZNaNHCs46Q&t=356s&pp=ygUXdnIgdHV0b3JpYWwgZnJ1aXQgbmluamE%3D
Design Process: I stopped thinking like a designer for this project. I knew that if I wanted to be successful with this project, I have to think like an engineer. When I first started, I brought in assets and placed them into what I thought would be an appropriate position. However, I realized that an engineer doesn’t think like that. I had to get my scripts working first before I could do anything else. I’ve learned from my past mistakes that functionality is more important that aesthetics. I can have the most amazing looking scene in the world, but if it doesn’t function, there’s essentially no point in having that scene to begin with. I knew that fruit ninja is a successful game and if I could get this to work, I would have officially taken my skill in Unity to the next level.
Implementation:
For previous projects, I had multiple functions in one script and this often caused problems. I quickly realized that scripting has little effect on the performance of a game and I could make multiple, smaller, individual scripts that will give me the functionality I need without causing me any trouble.
Several scripts were used to implement key game components in Slashing Savant and they are as follows:
