Date: Nov 2, 2021
Role: scriptwriter, game designer, producer, 2d artist, 3d artist
Tools: PS, Maya, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer
Platform: Quest 2, 3D Unity
Team
Scriptwriter: Yingzi Qu
Game Designer: Yingzi Qu
Producer: Yingzi Qu
Artist: Yingzi Qu, Chang Liu
Programmer: Zibo Ye, Rohit Sharma
Sound Designer: Yuan Tan
Voiceover: Melinda Zhou
Introduction
The Wedding is a storytelling interactive experience in VR based on a corrupt custom in Chinese culture —— dead marriage. The player plays the role of a parent of a girl and prepares for her wedding ceremony, but in the end, he/she will realize that both his/her daughter and the bridegroom have already died, and he/she sold his/her daughter's body to the bridegroom's family for money that can be used for his/her little son's marriage in the future.
Design Process
StoryBoard
As it was a game heavily based on a story, we started by creating a storyboard. After deciding the theme of Chinese dead marriage, we tried to figure out how to optimize the use of art assets, sound, and interaction, to create a horrible and uncanny atmosphere and tell a clear story to players who probably don't share the same cultural background at the same time.
To achieve this goal, our solution was to design a misty but enclosed indoor environment, leading the player to follow a linear route by the sequence of lightening candles on the tables. The order of the interactions on the table, stamping on an engagement letter, cutting a wedding dress, preparing the present box, and holding the ceremony for the couple's photo frames, were all inspired by real Chinese dead wedding ceremony rituals, which we believed was very immersive and could reflect the problems in reality.
We had a struggle with whether to use the Chinese voiceover plus English subtitles as it would add the cost of understanding for English native players, but since the effects were extremely amazing, we finally decided to keep it, but paid attention to test the subtitles to make sure it was very readable.
Art Reference Board
The art style is one of the most important elements that contribute to the atmosphere, so we did a lot of research on what kind of style we were going to use, and it turned out that a realistic traditional Chinese style was most suitable.
