What Is It? 

Camera Shy is a room-space, VR hidden object that emphasizes the novelty of VR object interaction. The player explores fantastic rooms with their trusty Polaroid camera and captures snapshots of the objects they find there.

Camera Shy is a student project produced as part of the Champlain College Game Studio’s Senior Production course. The project began in the fall of 2019 with a small team of 5 students and grew to its final size of 13 in January of 2020.

My Role

In the winter of 2020 I joined the team as one of 6 on-boarded members. On the team I served the role as lead level designer. This position entailed working closely with both the art and systems design team in order to unite the two and create engaging play spaces. In addition to concepting and collaboration I was primarily responsible for populating play-spaces in-engine with assets produced by engineering and art.

Below are the two levels produced for Camera Shy’s final build. I was instrumental in the development of both, having redesigned one from the pervious semester and carried the other from concept to build.

The Kitchen Re-Design

The re-making of the Kitchen level was my first assignment when joining the Camera Shy team. The re-making of this level entailed altering the theming and layout of the level to appear more whimsical and other-worldly. This was an updating of an existing environment, pursed with the goal of aligning the space more with a new thematic direction.

To re-make this kitchen I chose to maintain the shape of the play-space expressed in the original design of the area but altered traits to fit more with the new theme. Alteration included the increased ceiling height, introduction of new miscellaneous objects, and the dictating that a different color pallet be employed to better fit the space.

The Witch’s Hut

The Witch’s Hut was a level I produced from concept to final implementation during my time on the Camera Shy team. For this level I chose to include a second-floor, essentially doubling the play space while staying within the 10 x 10 room-scale bounds. During the design process of this level I was given creative liberty to take it in any direction I like. To choose the concept and art direction I actually spent most of my time consulting with the artists. I offered them various concepts and had them choose which they liked best. Since the artists would obviously be spending a lot of hands-on time making all new assets for this level I wanted them to have a say in the theming so they could be more excited about their work.

I spent a significant period of time in-editor with the Witch’s Hut building out the level, placing object, and ensuring the interest of the level. Much of my work involved moving between Unity and Maya in order to make slight alterations to artist created geometry and align objects as I saw fit.