Hattrick The Magician
Enter virtual reality as Hattrick The Magician and perform amazing stage magic to wow your fans! It started as a proof of concept for a pre-production class in spring 2021. At the end of the semester it was chosen to move on to full production in the fall semester. Later that year, our team expanded and we gained 16 weeks to finish the game.
Role: UI/UX Programmer
Team Size: 4 People Pre-Production | 8 People Production
Development Time: 4 weeks Pre-Production | 16 weeks Production
Development Period: March 2021 - December 2021
Platform: Meta Quest 2
Engine: Unity
Contributions:
Refactored Unity C# code to increase readability and performance
Built the Main Menu and the interactive Hat Menu
Directed the trailer and created the itch.io page and production deliverables
Trailer
Summary
During pre-production and production I was tasked with programming the UI/UX. As it was a small team, I was also in charge of preparing the deliverables such as the trailer, the itch.io page, the analytics, and the tutorial videos. As the main UI/UX programmer, I created the main menu and the menu in the hat that displays the tricks
Pre Production
In teams of 4 we were tasked with creating proof of concepts in a month's time to prove the viability of the game. The last project in the class was pitching an idea in front of judges to see if it should move on to a full semester's worth of development. We went with a concept that hasn’t been fully explored yet in VR – a game where you are a magician performing tricks on a stage in front of an audience. We really wanted to capture the feel of magic so we got into contact with The Mysticians, a Washington-based group of magicians. In the end, the judges were impressed with the work we did and we were given the green light for the fall. Over the summer we on-boarded 4 more members, refactored the code base, and rescoped for a longer development timeline with a burndown chart and a game macro chart.
The Top Hat
For Hattrick, I wanted to take a player-focused approach and prioritize my time on the UI/UX. We made the mechanism for selecting a trick to be grabbing a prop out of a hat just like a magician would pull out a rabbit. The prototype version worked by placing your hand into the hat and using the bumpers to cycle between the tricks and trigger to select it. User feedback showed this was clunky, unresponsive, and deterred from the game. Going into full production I knew that the new UI needed to feel natural by implementing a radial wheel that you can aim at different sections to choose your trick. This felt great and just needed some polish such as the size of the wheel being changing with the amount of remaining tricks and improving the highlighting from an outline to the whole section.
Analytics
One of the most important parts of game development is iterating on feedback. Qualitative observations such as asking players to fill out a feedback form was one method we used to accomplish this and gave data about how users feel while playing. However it lacked numerics that are important to get the reasons behind the qualitative observations. I used 2021 Unity analytics and its robust reporting system allowed me to develop an analytics manager that I was able to share with the class. This manager simplified adding analytics and allowed for variable-resolution data visualization. For all tricks, we wanted to gather data such as the trick selected, the player’s score, and the time spent. For the card boomerang trick, we wanted to track where the card was thrown. Analytics allowed us to view our game through a different lens and make changes more objectively.
Takeaways
Working on Hattrick The Magician was one of the most challenging projects I have done at MSU. This, however, led to me to gain the ability in working with new mediums. I had to relearn skills I had used in 2D and 3D games and change them to work in VR. This project taught me how to learn which will help with transferring skills to new engines and design methodologies.
