Odd Space: VR Edutainment Experience

When HP released a new version of the HP Reverb, they wanted a demo to ship with every virtual reality headset to showcase its features. It had to be an experience appealing to a wide range of players; both entertaining and educational, to show teachers how virtual reality is not just a new form of entertainment, but also an amazing learning tool. After all, students retain information better if they experience it instead of just memorizing it.
Set in the year 2050, the player would be tasked to find missing information about the human race. Early on the user would find a scorched Earth and a Mars planet whose dark side is sprinkled with city lights.

Brainstorm time: what kind of setting, otherwise rarely experienced, but often studied by all ages, can we recreate? Outer space was the most compelling option. Who wouldn't like to control a spaceship and hop from planet to planet?
For this demo, which we baptized as Odd Space, we simulated the inner solar system: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Now we just needed a story-driven goal.
We didn't want to make a educational game; after all, the main goal was to entertain and immerse the headset wearers, which can be players as young as 13 or older. But the storyline had to be food for thought: even fictional stories can carry a message about the real world and impact how we see it.
Climate change, resource crises and space exploration: these are no longer "topics of the moment", but issues that have become evergreen. These subjects fit perfectly with our setting and guarantee a story that will remain relevant in the long term.

CONCEPT OF WORMHOLE

The player character was set to be a member of "The Archivists": a race of aliens whose mission is to document every star system in their cosmic library. With this plot point, the user would take the role of an outsider, with little to no previous knowledge about the solar system or humankind. By not making the player character human, the fate of humanity could remain a mistery at start, without a foregone conclusion.

CONCEPT OF THE SPACESHIP INTERIOR

Set in the year 2050, the player would be tasked to find missing information about the human race. Early on the user would find a scorched Earth and a Mars planet whose dark side is sprinkled with city lights. What happened?

Without giving anything away, it's not an very uplifting — even if quite plausible — story about our future. This is meant to be a warning tale, not a fatalistic view of the future of mankind. How could we instill hope in the player and inspire them to take action for a better reality?
The dystopian future could not be our sole story, but a possibility instead. And so Odd Space's little own multiverse was brought to life. The dystopian future became Timeline A; the newly created Timeline B had to bring something new.

As the main story was based mostly on current events and social shifts, the side story had to lean more on fantasy: a softer sci-fi tale, fantastical and whimsical, especially for the younger players. Timeline B features reimaginings of planet Venus and Mercury if science and technology had removed the limits to what could be achieved: an Utopian future, where Earth still has its familiar green and blue hues. Across both timelines, each planet has its current, realistic version and a future fictional version, so players can compare and contrast the solar system as it is with what it could be.

EARTH
In Timeline A, Earth is depicted as dark and extinct, colorless, habitatless, lifeless, total destruction. Lack of human consciousness has crippled this planet, an enormous selfishness surrounded it unkindly, ending it forever.
In Timeline B, a planet full of nature similar to the original, incomparably unique and incredible corners, full of life, thousands of species and wonders. Clear waters flood 70% of it, the rest huge areas of cultivation.

MARS
In Timeline A, Mars is depicted as a colony overturned by a robot uprising.
In Timeline B, it is once again described as the "Red Planet", owing to the prevalence of iron oxide on its surface, giving it a reddish appearance.

VENUS
In Timeline A, Venus, Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and Earth's closest planetary neighbor, is considered the planet of beauty, as well as the brightest in the solar system.
In Timeline B, one day a wealthy tycoon decided to buy the planet Venus, and using atomic lasers he carved a shiny, precious stone of it.

MERCURY
Within Timeline A, Mercury’s close proximity to the Sun and its extreme climatic conditions make it difficult to sustain life on the planet. Despite numerous attempts over the years, endeavors to establish lifeforms on Mercury remained unsuccessful.
In Timeline B, humanity made a remarkable discovery: due to its huge nucleus, this planet can split hot water from cold water, allowing species from both aquatic environments to thrive. As time went on, the aquatic fauna on Mercury evolved to survive in space and feed on asteroids.

We wanted the player to feel as unconstrained as possible, so we gave a sandbox mechanic to the game. You can navigate between timelines and planets at any time: completing each timeline at a time or jumping between them as you progress is up to you. The player can travel manually to each planet, enjoying the beautiful star-speckled Milky Way through their panoramic viewport while listening to the unlocked datalogs.
Due to the massive size of playable area, the spaceship integrates navigation cues in its user interface to aid the player. The UI is fully diegetic: each interactable element and information providers are integrated in the spaceship's control panel, viewport and mission control messages.

FEATURES:
1. Use the spaceship's control panel to navigate between timelines and planets.
2. Explore each timeline and jump between them as needed.
3. Activate a speedcruise mode to hyperspeed to your destination.
4. Collect datalogs to uncover the unique stories of each planet.
5. Enjoy the breathtaking sight of the star-speckled Milky Way through the panoramic viewport!

If you're a hasty adventurer, you can activate a speedcruise mode to hyperspeed to your destination. But be careful, this light tunnel trip might present danger from other spaceships, space debris or natural disasters!

DIRECTION – Helder da Rocha Pereira
CREATIVE DIRECTION – Rafael Silva
3D PRODUCTION – Rafael Silva, Alexandre Carvalho, Nazariy Voloshchuck, Marta Amorim
DESIGN – Rafael Silva
DEVELOPMENT – Maurício Ferreira, Juliana Quintas
INSTALLATION & SUPPORT – Fernando Madaleno