Anxiety Rooms Sequence - Initial Prototype

[FilmCoder]

PROTOTYPE BASICS (basic stuff we want to get down)

• [x] Add more rooms with more doors. Shoot for 5 rooms TOTAL for initial prototype. The rooms should become busier as a progression (more doors, more claustrophobic). Some doors should loop back to doors in same room. Also, make the transportation triggers jut out more so it's easier to teleport.
• [x] Integrate VR controller into rooms setup
• [x] Integrate LED timer
• [x] Add audio for LED timer. (just a beep for each second. double frequency of beeps and increase volume towards the end)

POLISH

• [ ] Audio for player (heavy breathing. when moving, it should sound like running to make it feel rushed)
• [x] Heartbeat, grows in intensity until the end.
• [ ] Dizzy VR effect. Try adding in dizzy effect near the end (movement dissociation over time for the VR center camera's local position).
• [ ] Increased motion blur towards end.

EXPERIMENTS

• [ ] Near the very end, have rooms begin to scale down. (not sure how i'll do this whilst keeping the doors in place. I wonder if there's a way to anchor an object to a specific part of another objects mesh. That would make it easy to keep the doors secured to specific places in the rooms as they scale down.
• [x] Animate the lights. Maybe a few points lights or spot lights animated on a track going around the rooms. Kind of like helicopter search lights scanning for a runaway fugitive.

[FilmCoder]

Animating the lights didn't really work, but animating the textures was pretty cool. I think animated textures with no clearly visible edges or few edges (like a long hallway) can be really powerful. No visible edges because the edges jut out and act as visual anchors for the viewer, which makes the animated textures less overwhelming and more just a piece of noise.

[FilmCoder]

NEW POLISH IDEAS. After the latest play-through, I think these are the most low-effort high-value changes we can make to really pump up the room sequence. There are other cool stuff (like movement dissociation over time) that I chose to omit for now as the complexity is higher. Although I still really want to try the movement dissociation if we had extra manpower or time, it could be really cool.

• [x] Tilting Entire VR Player partway through level (disorientates and leaves player uncomfortable, makes them want to "get out" more urgently, to leave this disturbing place.
• [ ] Audio Polishing: Start beeps way earlier for extra anxiety, louder overall
• [ ] Footstep sounds: Need echoey footsteps, get more frequent towards end of level. Gives a sense of immediacy (when player moves, you hear the footsteps so it feels more like you're there). Without footsteps less intimate.
• [ ] Faster Speed: Towards end of door sequence increase speed for more intensity. Probably do this programmatically, not sure how yet, maybe with an animation curve.
• [ ] Camera Shake: Add shake near very end. Will be EPIC SWAG to have camera intensely jitter as sound explodes towards the end.