PROJECT
BeeQuest VR
A Virtual Reality Bee Simulator
Skills
Game Design
Level Design
Voice Acting
C# Programming
Software
Unity 3D
Visual Studio Code
Adobe Premiere Pro
Team
Jennifer Purington
Erica Yu
Efren Lopez
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Timeline
September - December 2023
(Three Months)
Game Summary
BeeQuest is an immersive Virtual Reality gaming experience wherein players assume the role of a worker bee, engaging in a dynamic exploration of a meticulously crafted Floridian forest environment. The gameplay involves employing a flapping motion for flight, strategically navigating the surroundings to collect nectar, pollinate flowers, and return to the hive.
Museum Presentation
This project was created for the Florida Museum of Natural History in order to show how Virtual Reality games can enhance positive educational experiences at museums. After development, we presented our game for about five hours at the museum--allowing hundreds of elementary school students to test out our game. This was an incredibly exciting experience and the event was featured at WFT NPR News. In the future, we are planning on posting our game to the Meta store, allowing people from any part of the world to be able to engage in our game.
Child playing the game at the museum
Getting set up for the event
My wonderful team
BeeQuest was featured in a variety of places, including WUFT NPR and the Medium!
My Role
Within this project, my responsibilities included game design, level design, sound design, voiceovers, and secondary programming. I was the team leader of this project.
Gameplay Demo
Game Mechanics
Flying
Players flap their arms to fly.
Pollinating Flowers
When a player goes from one flower to another, they pollinate it.
Collecting Nectar
When player touches a flower, their honey jar fills up.
Flying Navigation
For BeeQuest's navigation mechanics, we aimed to create an immersive experience with the player flying around the deep forest area from the perspective of a bee. We decided to keep the mechanic of having the player fly by flapping their hands while holding the controller instead of only using the joystick controls to navigate. To get started, the player would hold down the front trigger of the Oculus Quest 2/3 to activate this mechanic and then flap their hands. If they want to stop mid-air, they can release the trigger so that they will float instead.
Efren demonstrates the flying mechanic
Flying towards a glowing flower
Pollinating Flowers
Pollinating flowers is one of the main objectives of BeeQuest, as developed by Efren. When the player flies to the first flower, the flower counter does not go up yet because the player only began collecting pollen. Once they get to the second flower, they will be able to pollinate it with the pollen that they collected from the first flower, which would make the counter go up.
Pollination begins every other flower
Collecting Nectar
As the player visits each flower, they will also collect nectar. This is measured by the honey counter, where the jar is filled incrementally with honey. Once the player has reached as many flowers as they can, they will visit the hive to deliver their findings.
Honey counter is increased for each flower visit
In-game UI for pollination and nectar collection
Environment Design
For BeeQuest's environment design, I aimed to capture the essence of Florida's deep forests, distinct from common outdoor game environments. Choosing this biome was influenced by our intention to showcase the game at the Florida Museum and to differentiate from “Bee Simulator." My main design inspiration was “Ark Survival” due to its tropical jungle setting.
ARK: Survival Jungle Environments
Level Design
For the level design, I tried to replicate being deep within the jungle. Additionally, due to this game being a bee simulator, the environment was scaled up five times in order to make the player feel smaller. The level is relatively short because we were showcasing this game at the Florida Museum to elementary school students who were visiting. I wanted to keep the level short to ensure that all children would be able to get to play.
Prototype level design for BeeQuest
Aerial view without most trees
Aerial view with trees
How was the Environment built?
The assets utilized were from SeedMesh’s “Jungle - Tropical Vegetation” kit available on the the Unity store. Additionally, the honey bee particle system was Unluck Software’s “Insect Particles (Fly - Bee - Firefly)” kit. I placed all jungle trees individually, and utilized Unity terrain tools in order to create hills, paths, and grasses.
Game Screenshots
Final level design for BeeQuest
Pathway to the flowers
Pink flowers that the bees will pollinate
UI & Branding Design
Branding Objectives
Our goal for the overall branding and UI design of BeeQuest was to create bubbly, fun, and educational interfaces. With this, Erica set out to find inspiration that matched these objectives, similar to the designs of existing applications like Duolingo and Animal Crossing.
Duolingo Screenshot
Animal Crossing: New Horizons Screenshot
UI Design Challenges
Erica had the intention of designing the interfaces in mainly yellow and blue. However, there were visibility issues with adding blue interfaces in the game as it blended in with the vast blue skybox. Changing the interfaces, like the tutorial pop-ups, to colors such as red or green would also create similar visibility issues with the surrounding environment. With this, it was decided that yellow would be the main color of BeeQuest's UI design, while other colors would be used as accent colors for buttons.
UI Components
The UI components created for BeeQuest include the logo, start/credits/exit buttons (with normal, hover, and pressed states), flower counter, honey counter, seven tutorial pop-ups, level completion pop-up, and team credits.
UI and branding layout
Menu, Credit, & Game Over screens
For the menu screen, I wanted to replicate the feeling of being deep within the jungle.
Main Menu
Main Menu in VR
For the Credits and Level Complete screen, put the player inside of a hive, due to them returning to the hive during gameplay.
Credits screen
