BuddiesInReality

Inspiration

I used to play Insaniquarium a lot when I was a kid and replay it a few times when it got on Steam. But after that since there is no similar game like that, I have been longing for one with different theme and more gameplay mechanics. Recently I started using Quest 3 and really love the experience using it, so I thought this can be my favourite project I can do for long term.

About the game

TLDR, a casual game like Insaniquarium with Pokémon like creatures.

Long version... Enjoy pet care experience with little cute creatures called Buddies. As a Buddy caretaker, you can engage in a variety of activities: such as feeding, playing and protecting.

Use food fabricator tool to shoot various treats to keep them sated. Watch out for their appetite meter, when it reduce to zero they can die of hunger.

Throw a ball near them to watch them chase it, it will make them happy.

But it's not all cuddles and sunshine, Aliens from other worlds will come and harm your Buddies. So ready your gun to protect your Buddies and prevent the Alien from sucking out the life force from them.

There is "Bliss" that serves as a pivotal in-game resource. Players harness it to fabricate food using Food Fabricator, the food is essential for the buddies' sustenance. And then after some time, they can generate Bliss, which players can collect. This cyclical process underscores the interdependence between player actions and buddy well-being, fostering a symbiotic relationship within the game's ecosystem.

Accumulating a sufficient quantity of Bliss can achieve victory, signifying caregiving skills and the thriving state of this virtual ecosystem.

This is tested only on Quest 3, I am not sure about compatibility on other quest devices.

How I built it

Even thought I have worked on many game dev projects, I have never worked on any VR, AR or MR projects, this is completely new to me. So mostly depending on and following official Meta tutorials are my only way of learning, trying and building it for now. I also did so many iterations, dropped some contents and add new ones along the tiring journey.

Challenges

Since this is like an uncharted area for me, some Meta SDKs are challenges to some degree.

Accomplishments and New knowledges

Really proud of myself finishing the basic gameplay mechanics. Developing a MR project is interesting and give me different perspectives in designing game mechanics, so this is another precious knowledge to me.

What's next for BuddiesInReality

This project also gives me new gameplay ideas to develop further more. There are a lot of things to do after this Hackathon....

• the game needs a lot of optimizations like converting the scripts to C++ codes with better data structures or system designs, maybe tone down some hardware expensive processes
• add hand tracking, I already have this in mind so make all the tools vertically grabbable shapes and intentionally design the gameplay for less button inputs
• scene anchor, so that player can place auto running machines on wall and ceiling which can help the player in taking care of Buddies
• new variations in everything: more different Buddies, some of them can have unique ability, more tools, foods which can affect differently, and so on.

Built With

• blueprint
• metaxr-plugin
• metaxraudio
• unreal-engine