Pop Stars - KPop Edition!

Inspiration

When we spotted the Roleplaying Dress-Up category we couldn’t resist—this was our time to shine! Instead of sticking solely to dress-up, we decided to tap into the global appeal of K-pop and its iconic dance performances. We’re excited for players to step into the spotlight: mix and match over 100 stylish clothing pieces (all wearable outside of KPop Stars), master your choreography in the practice studio, and take the stage to prove you’ve got the star power to steal the show!

How we built it

Fashion Creation

Fashions were developed using a combination of creative tools. Early designs were generated with Horizon GenAI as a base and then refined in Photoshop for corrections. Most pieces, however, were created in Canva! To support the judging process, each clothing item was tagged with various styles and characteristics.

Avatar Clothing System

Players can temporarily equip clothing through avatar overrides to try on new outfits in the world. Clothing created with the in-game creator tools were converted into Avatar items and applied using overrides. This system allows players to mix existing wardrobe items with new creations, enabling quick and dynamic updates to their appearance in-game.

Dance Creation and Performance

Dances were sourced from Mixamo and applied to both player avatars and NPCs. Similar to clothing, each dance move was tagged to assist judges in evaluating performances. The recording system captures timing and animation data, which can be replayed to produce synchronized multi-dancer performances.

Music Integration

Songs were sourced from open-license and royalty free collections, then edited to the required lengths, and tagged accordingly.

User Interface and Selection

The Kpop experience relies heavily on custom UI systems to present large amounts of outfit, song, and dance data. Dynamic lists and interactive elements such as scroll views allow players to browse, combine, and select the perfect complements for their routines. All player choices are stored in their performance data.

Judging System

For the judging process, Horizon GenAI was used to generate NPC judges as well as their responses and reviews. These reactions are based on the tagged attributes of the clothing, dances, and songs—and how they combine to form a complete performance.

What it does

Craft your perfect performance and take the stage to earn rewards. Check the store for new clothing, songs, and dance moves that rotate daily. Or buy a prize box to grab something not currently available in the store. Find something you really like? All of our clothing items are available to purchase wear outside of KPop Stars!

Challenges we ran into

Our original concept envisioned players as the lead performers in a pop group, with the ability to uniquely dress each group member and curate their dance routines. While we were able to customize the player’s avatar, a bug prevented us from dressing NPCs. Once this issue is resolved, we plan to extend customization to NPC crowds and backup dancers.

Designing mobile-first, high-quality custom UIs presented a challenge, particularly in maintaining consistent performance and responsiveness across devices. We plan to continue iterating on the UI/UX to achieve a balanced and seamless user experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of and what we learned

We feel very excited to share our world with everyone and see how players express themselves in our custom clothing. It’s been very entertaining dressing ourselves in custom clothing and seeing our avatars dance to fun songs. Taking snapshots and sharing our performances internally has sparked a lot of excitement internally and entertainment seeing team members in different attire each playtest.

What's next for KPop Stars

Our original vision featured players forming a pop group with dressable NPCs that would dance alongside them. However, we see a future opportunity that we’d like to build next—allow players to sync their dances with others in real time, forming their own pop groups and performing together. To add more structure and friendly competition, we plan to host world events that encourage players to explore different clothing pieces, songs, and dance styles. We also aim to provide VR players with a first-class experience, enabling them to dress up, dance, and perform with friends in an immersive environment.

In the future, we also want to introduce a player progression system that lets performers build their fame and popularity, unlocking new stages, studio customizations, dance moves, songs, a pop star hall of fame upstairs, and more. By supporting streamable, shareable moments, we hope to cultivate a vibrant community of players who enjoy performing with friends and expressing themselves to a wider audience.