Why VR for this project?

The reason that I decided to work on VR was because it is an area of development I wanted to explore further with the unique challenges that it presents- it puts the player in the game world and posses some interesting challenges such as the player body, the potential for increased interactivity with the game world.

Personally I think it could add to the project, inside VR your natural instinct is to look around and interact with the environment. I'm hoping that the project will engage with players who like to find secrets and explore. The premise of a detective game seemed like a natural fit with this idea.

I'm thinking of games such as Observer( Bloober Team, 2017) and Draugen (Red Thread Games, 2019), they both have rich environments for the player to explore and interact with but I feel they could be enhanced by having VR gameplay - instead of clues that are highlighted to the player or a button prompt- let the player find things from themselves. This will need careful design in my project as I am aware that this could lead to potential player frustration.

Looking at mechanics, I could have the player find clues hidden under objects on environmental cues that would otherwise be missed- because inside VR the player is face to face with the world that they're in. I could have a player journal as a physical book in the world ( though this might prove too much of a challenge) where they can make notes and that acts as a pause menu/ log or literally as a journal keeping the players on track. 

Observer (Bloober Team, 2017)

Draugen (Red Thread Games, 2019)

There is also the potential for things to go wrong with the project, while I do have some experience with VR development, I would not say at this stage that I am an expert. There is potential that I could get stuck on some aspect of the project or that it simply isn't engaging. There are issues that I will have to tackle as they come up as I can't plan for every eventuality. Hopefully COVID permitting I will be able to gather some user feedback as the project matures but it can't be relied upon as of writing.