Time Ranger

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  Recreated the US Time Crisis box art for fun.

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  Recreated the PAL Time Crisis box art for fun.

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  Final showdown at the Saloon

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  Shooting range added for the competition

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  New main menu, with leaderboards, challenges, medals and a shooting range!

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Inspiration

A love letter to the golden age of Light Gun shooters.

TIME RANGER is a throwback to on-rails lightgun classics like Time Crisis and House of the Dead. Built from the ground up for VR.

What it does

We have distilled what made classic arcade light gun experiences great, and we have translated that to VR for new and veteran players, creating an entirely new experience. A rebirth for the light gun genre.

Simple, yet addictive gameplay. Easy to pick up and play, yet challenging to master.

How we built it

We built it from the ground up using the XR Unity tools Meta has created and provided. It gave us an incredibly solid foundation to build our core gameplay experience on top of, and quickly focus on finding the fun.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenges we faced were translating some of the classic lightgun elements into a VR experience. Instant hit enemy bullets proved annoying and confusing, so we made hazard projectiles slow and something you needed to dodge.

Moving from section to section proved to be something that caused motion sickness and nausea if it turned you are moved too erratic. We went through a lot of level design iteration to ultimately determine that straight lines combined with using Metas provided vignette feature helped to make the experience comfortable. This also ultimately simplified the level design pipeline to focus on combat content rather than complex navigation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

An accessible experience, we have seen first hand that both children and elderly can pick up and play with no instruction. Particularly proud to have seen a 70 year old man who has never played a video game in his life put on the headset and instantly understand what to do.

Also, just how much we have managed to create as a team of two in such a small timeframe. We are proud of us.

What we learned

How naturally people can understand their surroundings. Holding a gun? I know how to shoot that! Threatening bullet coming at me? Physically move out of the way!

We quickly realised that any erratic movements forced on the player could trigger nausea and be unsettling, which drove a lot of level design and system simplification. It's why the demo you see is a straight line. Turning and weaving proved a little too much for a more casual audience.

What we focused on for the competition

• Meta Leaderboards: We implemented Meta leaderboards for demo level. For each accessibilty / playstyle configuration there is a leaderboard for you. The correct leaderboard displays as you choose your configuration. The leaderboard shows Top Global and players around you, and it'll prioritise showing friends that are also on the leaderboard over random players, for a more personal and social touch.
• Shooting Range: -We added a shooting range for a shorter snappier play option - an attempt lasts 20 seconds. Plus, we added leaderboards to it to. Dual pistol & Single pistol boards
• Challenges: - Expanded replayability - rewarding skillful and creative play, while also encouraging revisiting levels and exploration. (Aiming to hook this into Meta Challenges, and Meta Achievements)
• Level Medals: Alongside social leaderboards there are personal goals too - the faster you go, the better a medal you earn.
• Expanded Accessibility / Playstyle configurations:
• Enemy projectile difficulty (how fast projectiles move)
• Bunch of polish: Localization added, improved core gameplay feedback (Ricochets!), improved enemy animations (rolling!), pausing!

What's next for Time Ranger

We are laser focused on releasing the full game. We're going to roll out the demo publicly, shortly after competition submission. We have big plans for both Time Ranger, this is our first game and hopefully just the beginning of long and fruitful journey creating wonderful VR experiences. This competition acted as a north star for is to really focus on making that core experience special.

Built With

• meta
• unity
• xr