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Spotlit drum for tutorial
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Environment
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Taiko Team!
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Taiko Team at the closing ceremony!
Inspiration
One of our teammates, Dana, joined a taiko group in college. Having made incredible friends and learning a unique instrument, after graduation she was left without a drum and—more importantly—without her friends to play with.
What it does
"Memories of Kumi-Daiko" (Memories of a Group of Taiko Drummers) is an innovative Virtual Reality (VR) narrative experience that combines storytelling and hands-on learning to create a compelling journey through the world of taiko drumming. Most drumming games are single-player, scored experiences. We wanted to provide users with a unique opportunity to experience formative memories, fostering connections and learning the art of taiko in a judgment-free environment that lets you advance at your own pace, focusing on the fun and connection of a taiko group.
Gameplay The experience begins with a monologue of Dana reminiscing on her taiko drumming experience as artifacts of her past float in a dark environment with glowing orbs. The user is the transported to a space with a single drum spotlit under a smoke effect. As the user approaches and picks up the drumsticks, the rest of the environment appears, including a red tori gate, sakura trees, and additional taiko drums.
A short tutorial ensues, first familiarizing the user with hitting the drum, then moving onto playing quarter notes. From there, hologram taiko drummers appear to play a song, which the user can jam to on their drum (either practicing the quarter notes or free playing). The experience ends with a short monologue about how Dana never thought she'd be able to play the taiko again, but that now all she needs are her two drumsticks (in this VR experience). Users are then given the option to explore the space and freeplay!
How we built it
With the help of an interdisciplinary team, we built Kumi-Daiko within the Unity game engine utilizing the Meta Presence Platform, with the final iteration of the project living on the Meta Quest 3 headset in VR. More detail on the tools we iterated through (in case you might want to try them, too!): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B-T1cWpCreUsrI9EFZP9D7UjLL3qOGzVqG604vQUaps/edit?usp=sharing
Challenges we ran into
Naturally, as a 2.5-day hackathon, we had to make tough decisions in a condensed time frame. We managed to pivot from mixed reality (SDK issue) and an advanced tutorial (experience length) to a short, narrative focused around community and connection. We also iterated through many tools for 3D generation (Meshy, Genie) and motion capture (Ultra Leap, Rokoko camera, keyed out camera).
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We really came together on the first night of the hackathon to focus on our goal and work together to support everyone's role in creating a final product. Everyone in the team contributed something special and important to the final result, and by focusing the narrative on uplifting Dana's personal story, it really brought us together in a way that working on a more technical-focused project may not have.
What we learned
Breaking down the idea to a core MVP was pivotal to our ability to finish an experience. We would also consider using PC VR for our next hackathon experience to overcome some intermittent standalone framerate challenges.
What's next for Memories of Kumi-Daiko
This was our first module to get people started just interacting with the drum in a group jam experience. For future modules, we'd like to progress to more advanced taiko techniques through the lens of the history of taiko drumming as a fundamentally group musical experience.
We are actively working on bringing this experience to Side Quest so you can try it yourself!
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