Scour
Scour is an asymmetrical, competitive, virtual reality game. One player in an HTC Vive competes against a group of players using Google Cardboard VR. The Google Cardboard players navigate a castle trying to find hidden treasure. The Vive player looks down at the castle on a tabletop in front of them. The Vive player can move walls, set traps, and place monsters in the castle to try and keep the other players from achieving their goal.
I built this with a group of friends as an undergraduate capstone project in 2017. I was the lead game designer and level designer.
Maze Player Gameplay
Players in the maze must fight against monsters dropped by the Vive player. Because the maze players only have one button on their Google Cardboard's, they attack by simply looking at a monster and clicking. Monster move and attack slowly to accommodate the difficulty of timing attacks with this system.
God Player Gameplay
The Vive player can see the players running through the maze on the table in front of them. They grab monsters, walls, or traps and place them wherever they want.
We initially gave the Vive player access to all of their walls, monsters, and traps from the beginning of each round. We found that players had difficulty knowing how quickly they should use their resources, though, and often ran out. This left the Vive player with nothing to do. To remedy this, we switched to giving the Vive player a few items at a time that refreshed on a set timer.
Moving in the Maze
To move, Google Cardboard players look at the spot on the ground where they want to move and click. At first, we implemented this movement by sliding players along the ground toward their destinations. We quickly found that players experienced motion sickness when being moved this way, though. We switched to a movement system where players were immediately teleported to their targets. We also introduced a short cool down for this teleport to balance it because it was much faster than the previous system.
Every room and hallway layout in the maze is unique, so it's possible to navigate without getting lost.
Variation Between Rounds
The players in the maze must find a key to open the door to the goal room. The Vive player places the key in an area unknown to the Google Cardboard players to start each round. This often requires the Google Cardboard players reach one end of the maze to get the key before retracing their steps to find the door.
Giving the Vive player this control allowed each game to be different without being random.
