Postmortem

- Successes (What went right)

The narrative and story/logic flow of rediscovering our humanity in the future of mechanization unfolded well in our design and concept. We had a strong narrative we’ve decided on and we were able to represent the plot well through visual elements, sound, and the AR format of the experience. We were able to create a cohesive and immersive environment through designing assets, lighting, and sounds that were immmersifying for the user. Another success was branching out from the traditional format of games in taking on the challenge of making something inside AR. The consistent thematic elements and color story created the feeling of revelation that we had aimed for. Because of how the cave/room was designed, the visitor was able to discover the environment at their own pace while having the time to enjoy the experience completed with interactive objects and animation. 

- Failures (What went wrong)

Our original design consisted of 3 rooms, which then went down to 2 due to time constraints. These two rooms were designed inside unity but only one was tested successfully with our environment. We were able to create the second room with all its elements completed but however, in the testing period, the AR scene wasn’t working with our camera and we weren’t able to complete the second part of our story. Although we were able to accomplish the AR experience with our first room, the second room wasn’t able to sync up with the environment. Another shortcoming was transferring textures and materials from 3D software to unity and there were a lot of flipped normals to clean up. 

- Lessons Learned (What did you learn from your failures or how did you overcome them)

Testing with AR taught us ways we can take advantage of the tools inside unity and how we can create a more immersive, interactive, and unique experience for the visitors of our created space. We also learned that we should have managed our time better since a large part of the allotted time was spent developing our ideas into a story, which was all made harder by Zoom and meeting online. However, through Unity Collaborate, we were able to cohesively go into our file to work together. We’ve also learned how to implement and test with different lighting, animation, and material making inside Unity to overcome some of the trouble we encountered. 

- Future Development (If you were to continue working on this game how would you improve it)

For future development, we would like to keep testing our second room to complete the entire story of the experience. Another improvement would be to put time into making a cohesive UI that matches our theme, and including an introduction and ending page to the experience since right now it is only tested on one device. Through further distribution, testing, and feedback, we can implement improvements in different elements that could make the experience stronger and more impactful.