Exodus Burned
Exodus Burned is a full body VR active Esport game where players need to move their entire body in different challenges to earn points.
Players compete in roughly 10 challenges back to back, each challenge taking 1 minute to complete.
There are 5 tiers of difficulty that each challenge can be played on. This determines what patterns and settings are used.
It was my job to create those patterns and fine-tune the settings in such a way that the amount of athleticism and agility required for every pattern of every challenge of every tier was suitable for each tier’s appropriate target audience and be consistent with the cognitive flow approach.
Video showcasing my Robotdog, Sweeping Lasers & Jump Rope Challenge↓
(Higher tiers require bigger movements and are more punishing) ↓↓↓
Balancing & pattern creation
On the right you can see a difficulty matrix sheet I made for the challenge called ‘Asteroids’. When working on a challenge I always make sure to identify all factors that influence difficulty so I can easily tweak the overall difficulty by adjusting different aspects.
When working on these challenges I thought about ways to incorporate new body movements and target all muscle groups. For example in the challenge called ‘Asteroids’ by placing the red blocks in a certain way I was able to add squats and pushups to the game! (Shown in gif ↓↓↓)
Improving co-operative play
In team-play challenges like ‘RobotDog’, I designed patterns in such a way that they emphasized the need for proper co-operation.
For example in the higher tiers I introduced 2 new elements that encourage communication.
- Multiple Blue Holos at once
Requires players to communicate in what order they will collect the Holo
- Limited visibility on the Holos for 1 of the 2 players
Requires the player who can see the blue Holo to guide the other player’s movement towards said Holo
Prototyping new challenges!
I pitched new ideas with clear concept imagery for efficient communication.
Created new challenges using C# and followed an efficient iterative approach with focused play testing.
Because each challenge in Exodus Burns takes about 1 minute in total to complete, there is not a lot of time for on-boarding. That’s why I made sure to make challenges instantly understandable like the Jump Rope Challenge for example! Keeping things simple maintains the flow, which is very important in a fast paced exercise/active e-sport game!
Creating the Jumping Rope Challenge
The Jump Rope Challenge is a new challenge that I designed, pitched, programmed, play-tested and balanced.
Below are some noteworthy rational design decisions I made during the creative process.
Why Jump Rope?
- It’s easy to understand, requires little on-boarding
- It adds an effective cardiovascular exercise to the game that can become tiring within a short duration
- It emphasizes the fact that the players’ legs are being tracked (which is not often the case in VR)
Laser movement
The lasers move in a fixed predictable speed to allow the player to get into the rhythm. Each tier has its own tempo suitable for its intended target audience. Higher tiers feature 2 lasers (Double Dutch) to increase difficulty and make it visually more exciting for spectators. Even though there is down-time to accommodate for different skill levels & lessen monotony, the laser rotation speeds are timed so that optionally the player can still jump continuously if he so desires.
For some tiers the lasers not only rotate but also move horizontally. The reason why I programmed this feature is because play-testing showed that this horizontal motion made jumping over the laser more reliable as the laser would sweep underneath you more quickly. Simply increasing the rotational speed only, would make the challenge too punishable and less accessible, but the horizontal motion doesn’t decrease down-time in-between jumps.
Pattern Spawning
The Holos, (blue collectibles), move in a single axis over the play area.
The reason behind spawning them in this manner is so that the player can direct his attention on jumping over the rotating laser instead of having to look around to find them like for example in the Sweeping Lasers Challenge where they spawn in the corners of the play area.
Note that I ended up changing the direction the Holos spawn from to increase visual clarity for the contesters. Play-testing showed that some players found seeing the other players’ Holos was distracting whilst looking at the nearest laser arms helped improve their timing.
Just like the laser, the Holos too move in a fixed speed to grant the player a sense of rhythm.
I (painstakingly) timed the moving Holo spawning in such a way that they can be collected in-between jumps, so that the laser is never unfairly in the way of collecting one. This also further tests the players coordination, as the combination of jumping and collecting Holos in-between jumps requires footwork comically similar to Irish Dancing. It creates a risk-reward situation as the player must constantly make split-second decisions on how many Holos he can collect and still make the next jump.
Getting hit
If the player hits a laser, both the laser and the Holo spawning will temporarily turn off, meaning the player can’t just ignore the laser and collect Holos without jumping. The laser turns off as soon as it’s touched so the game won’t unfairly register more than 1 minus point.
I programmed the laser to re-appear at a fixed angle that play-testing proved to be ideal for preparing the next jump. Even when featuring 2 lasers, the precise timing of the re-appearing lasers allow players to re-enter the game!
The Jump streak
Because the Jump Rope Challenge is one of the more cardio intensive exercises in the game, I wanted to positively encourage the player to press on.
That’s why I added a Diegetic UI element in the form of a Jump Streak bar located in front of the player. It counts the amount of successful jumps the player has made in a row and rewards the player with the spawning of a Bonus Holo upon reaching a streak. This proved to be highly motivating!
The pink bonus point Holos are timed in-between the regular Holo patterns and their spawn location requires a swift arm motion to collect, which feels very satisfying to pull off.