CRYPTODROME

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Game Design

In CRYPTODROME one player plays in VR as The Director and uses various machines and monitors in their environment to direct The Actor (the other desktop player) in navigating a labyrinth called The System.   The main goal is for the Director and Actor to communicate with one another in order to solve Puzzle Gates and retrieve the keys needed to reboot The System all while evading a viral monster that chases the actor throughout each level, but all may not be what it seems.


With the goal being to create an interesting asynchronous experience I designed CRYPTODROME as something that would both require collaboration and also suspicious.  Both players have choices of how they will get the other to go along with their main objectives.  The environment is loaded with hints to not trust one another, but the bottom line is that if the Virus gets to the Actor before any objectives are complete the game is over for everyone.



The Virus is the monster that pursues the Actor and will cause an end screen if it gets close enough.  I created the monster to be ethereal, but also disruptive to your tasks.  The model I designed had a custom shader on it.  Using Sharderforge for Unity I put together a shader that looked like animating TV noise that would become transparent at certain intervals.  This would incentivize further collaboration between players since the Actor would not always know how close the Virus was at any given moment.  The Director on the other hand has a detailed map showing the location of both the monster and the Actor.  


To make the Virus even more disruptive a glitch-style render effect appeared on the Actors screen when the monster drew near an established line of sight.  Additionally light emitted from the monster's eyes would get brighter and brighter the closer it got.  There further impared the Actors ability to communicate the details about the Puzzle Gates blocking access around the map. 

CRYPTODROME Original Audio and Music Samples
Here is some of the audio and music I created for CRYPTODROME