Appa Island

Inspiration

Our storytelling and world design were inspired by several Horizon World builds we visited, especially Meta’s Bobber Bay and Dream Leaper. These worlds motivated us to create something unique with a distinctive art style, engaging storytelling, and a space that combines social interaction and gaming. We also drew inspiration from game mechanics like adding motion and interactivity to make the experience more engaging and cohesive.

What it does

Appa Island is a world where players embark on a journey to become the mightiest adventurer by completing a series of challenges and activities scattered across the island. Players face tasks like shooting moving gemstones, racing through stone pillars on a boat, and battling Drankar the Dragon in an ultimate battle to earn the title of the mightiest adventurer across the realms.

How we built it

Ideation:We brainstormed various concepts, characters, and storylines using Figma and Adobe tools. After several rounds of iteration and usability testing, we settled on the current experience.
Greyboxing: We began by using large primitive shapes to create a low-fidelity world design, which helped us refine composition and spatial layout.
Designing: Our world design primarily used primitives, and we created assets with a focus on both virtual headset and mobile compatibility.
Headset/Mobile User Experience: We ensured that the design was optimized for both headset and mobile, offering a seamless experience across platforms.
Interactivity/Scripting: We integrated interactivity and scripting into our models to enhance the narrative and create a dynamic, game-like experience.
Testing: After completing the design, we conducted QA testing to evaluate performance, gameplay mechanics, and interactivity, making necessary adjustments based on feedback.

Challenges we ran into

Designing Appa Island came with several challenges:

Capacity: We struggled to predict how capacity would fluctuate due to the varying sizes of objects in the world, which made performance optimization challenging.
Cross-platform Experience: Designing for both mobile and VR for the first time brought a learning curve, as we had to ensure a seamless experience across both platforms.
Modeling with Primitives: While we successfully built the world using only primitives, we were limited in terms of custom objects. Our lack of prior experience with creating custom worlds meant we had to rely on pre-existing textures, materials, and objects, which limited the creative flexibility we could have had.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are really proud of how we both came together, and combined our skills to create a fully functioning world that emphasizes both aesthetics and player interactions through scripting. Our dedication and ability to learn on the go proved useful when facing new challenges. Being part of the MHCP community was a rewarding experience, and as first-time MHCP world builders, we are proud to be able to contribute to it.

What we learned

Community Engagement: Being part of the MHCP community gave us valuable insights into world building and connected us with other creators and resources. Capacity Management: We discovered how important it is to plan for capacity based on object sizes and complexity Cross-Platform Design Challenges: Designing for both mobile and VR simultaneously taught us the importance of optimizing user experience for different devices. We learned to balance performance and interactivity to ensure a smooth experience across both platforms.