SpaceShifter Windows, VR, PS4 game

A "warp"-up, where we've been, where we will be.

First, what happened?

Hey, it's been a while! After our last post, things got a little hectic. We participated in the "Over & Out" event, hosted by our university, and won the "Prémio 42" (42 prize - stands for the meaning of life, often granted to projects that go a little out of the box with their concept or implementation enough to captivate an audience). We had to make some promotional content for the game and expose it to different professionals of the industry, it was a very enriching experience to be able to share with the world after we all worked so hard to make a VR project during COVID 19 times.

After this, we had to put the game on hold, as the group members had changes in schedules, and we had new projects to work on (which you can find in our itch.io page!) since we wanted to experiment with many new things (XR and more narrative based perspectives, among others). But we're happy to be back! We want to bring this game to PlayStation Talents and give it the better closure it deserves.

Rewinding

So how did SpaceShifter come to be? Well, we took a calculated risk with this one, as a group we have a tendency for aiming a little higher than we can reach sometimes, and challenge ourselves to grow that way. This was something that worried some of our professors as they knew we'd propose another outlandish scheme as the year started back on online classes, and they couldn't say no on the same tone. They all warned us we'd be trying to pull something crazy off with just one helmet and a week-long course on VR development in unity. And so, we did!

We started brainstorming and decided we'd experiment with VR, as we had a one week class dedicated to it which really reeled us in, and we already had dabbled on puzzle games in the past, so we thought it would be a good genre to properly dive into. We researched endlessly through sci-fi media, different theories regarding space and time, even considered delving into the non-euclidean! (But that's for another game) It was an all around exciting experience, as exhausting as it got, because we learned so much about all the different components of game development through it.

We had to create 2D and 3D assets, game design documents, make budget plans and business projections, create different platform prototypes for testing, a vertical slice, think up promotional materials (documents, trailers, presentations, banners, posters, etc), as well as update you guys here on social media! We learned a lot about the hardships of project managing, and we juggled tasks between eachother a few times, but we're ever grateful for all the opportunities it's gotten us.

A look into the future

This year we are participating in the PlayStation Talents 2022, as well as attending events such as Lisboa Games Week and Fnac Novos Talentos. We want to keep creating content that will put us out there in this beloved industry and can't wait to keep sharing the news with you! We want to pick this project back up and continue to give it a spin with what we've learned thus far, so we can bring it to you!

Once again, we are very grateful for this community, and we will continue to grow and deliver more content for you. Keep an eye on the portal!