MR Escape Room

As part of a Virtual Environments Module at UCL, I created this short Mixed Reality Escape Room Game. I was excited about the possibility of combining physical and virtual props, where there were physical attributes not visible in VR. I used three different boxes of different sizes and different physical weights. These were represented in the virtual world by virtual boxes with different colors. A player had to put the right amount of weight onto a cylindrical table that controlled the flow of water. With the correct flow of water, the water reached the pipe. As a second puzzle, the player had to bridge a whole in the water pipe. There was a physical pipe piece that could be stuck to a real wall, that lined up perfectly with the virtual wall. When this was achieved the water could finally flow to a doorway where a fire was extinguished to open up the way to the next room.

This was a very fun project, that didn't only teach me a lot about VR and Unity Development, but also led me to explore a range of libraries and methods for Mixed Reality. I experimented with mixing the camera feed of a VR headset with the virtual world, with different representations of water and fire and their performances in a VR experience and using Vive trackers to achieve a the alignment of virtual and physical worlds.

Additionally, I researched how body perception in VR influenced presence and orientation in a virtual world and how different lighting and object abstractions minimized a player's confusion about not seeing their own hands.