Space Invaders VR
Reimagining a 70’s classic in 2020
This project was one of my first explorations of developing for VR. I’ve really enjoyed playing VR games - they’re so immersive, and they’re fantastic and/or hilarious to play with groups at parties (BeatSaber is a personal favorite). I wanted to dig deeper and understand more about the process of creating one of these experiences.
Gameplay
Space Invaders was a really neat game idea to riff on for a project like this. Combining 8-bit visuals from the original games with updated graphics and interactions provided for lots of fun decision-making.
The invaders themselves retain their original 8-bit character, but each pixel has become a cube with a width of nearly a meter. I created the models and their animations in Blender. The 3-dimensional environment they exist in here allowed for a fun explosion effect when they’re hit by the laser — the individual cubes themselves remain intact, but the character disintegrates into its individual pieces.
The laser cannon is a fun callback that is most likely not recognizable to many, but it’s loosely based on a laser cannon used by Dot in ReBoot, one of my favorite cartoons from childhood (one which is jam-packed with references to computing). It’s massive, and both hands are used to grab and aim it. Firing it triggers an internal particle-effect explosion as well as haptic feedback.
The shields aren’t based visually on the shields from the original game. In a 3D setting such as this, I wanted them to have transparency as well as some updated effects. They’ve got a glow at the edge — I wanted a Fresnel-type effect, but based on their slight curvature, the player won’t see them at grazing angles, so instead I’ve simply made them glow with a power function depending on the radius from their center. When hit by a laser, they exhibit an ‘absorption’ effect where the energy is transferred from the colliding point outward.