In order to publicize our product and increase our brand reputation, we were thinking to build a platform where we could not only promote our products to our potential customers but also display our company itself to our potential business partners. Therefore, we came up with the idea of developing a game. Besides presenting our product and our company, we also decided to empower the game by adding more content to publicize the knowledge of synthetic biology and the principles of our research projects.
Instead of the traditional oral and written explanations, this game provides players with a first-person view that adds a lot of fun, allowing players to explore the space we envision and appreciate the interior architecture. By touring the whole scene, people could learn information about the project we are committed to research, the widespread scientific knowledge of synthetic biology, the composition of the team, and the goals we want to achieve through text messages which will pop up in some specific areas.
To make the game feel like a Holmesian adventure, interactive communication will be scattered throughout the scene -- photo frames, 3D products, and display panels. As the player moves through the scene, the information about E.H-Cheers will be pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle, and the player will enjoy the exploration of the company with soft background music in the beautiful scenery and gradually learn about the goals of our team and the experimental process of the project.
In our first idea, we planned to create a science paradise named E.H-Cheers. In the center of heaven, there would be a small science center, which would store the research content of our team. This idea was eventually abandoned since we considered the architectural model of the park not relevant to our research topic, the final explorable area would be too large to notice the core information we initially mean to show to players.
In the end, we got back to the initial business plan to establish a company.
Firstly we thought to build an art gallery displaying product pictures inside. Players could interact with the paintings on the wall to view the large images and information about the products. Still, this plan was eventually canceled due to the limited product designs.
Gallery scene
To better show the company, we have also built an outdoor factory model, which can be used to show the production factory in our simulated company. In the business plan, we decided to outsource the production line to a production company because of the cost, thus an outdoor factory is not included in our game, but it's still an exciting model that we might utilize in the future if we expand the business.
Factory model
During the production, we built two models of the halls with two totally different styles. After releasing the beta version to a few players, we found that the dark environment was not ideal for players to look for clues about the information company and visit, so we ended up with the first, brighter lobby.
Two different Lobby models
The entire game was made in Unity. Before making a game, you first need to build models for the scenes and objects in the game.
The default layout contains all the Windows you need, you can customize it as required by reordering and grouping the Windows. Of course, you can also open new and close Windows per your need. Each window has configuration options, accessible through its three-point button in the upper right corner. In addition, you could find more options by tapping the toolbars.
Unity's functionality is modular. In addition to its core functionalities, a separate standalone package can be downloaded and included in the project. The default 3D project currently contains some packages under the Packages bar in the project window which you can use.
Nowadays rendering is usually done in linear color space, but Unity still uses Gamma color space by default. For the best visual effects, for reference, we can go to Edit/Project Settings. When we open the Project Settings window, select the Player category and scroll down to the Rendering section in the Other Settings panel. Do make sure the color space has been set to linear.
Now we need a game object. You'll start with the most straightforward game object, an empty object. This can be created using the GameObject/Create Empty menu option. Alternatively, we can use the Create Empty option in the context menu of the hierarchy window, which can be opened by right-clicking or double-clicking. After that, we could add the game object to the scene. It is visible and immediately selected in the hierarchy window under SampleScene, which is now marked with an asterisk to indicate that it has not yet saved the changes.
Even though we have a model object, we don't see anything. You need to add a 3D model to it to render this. Unity contains some natural objects you can use to build a simple clock. First, add a Cylinder to the scene via GameObject/3D Object/Cylinder. Do make sure it has the same Transform value as our clock.
Add the new script asset to the project through Assets/Create/C# script and name it Clock. C# is a programming language for Unity scripting, pronounced C-sharp. Let's place it in the new Scripts folder to keep the project clean.
The following is a demo of the in-game clock model.
Finally, we gradually finished all required models, including our product model.
Product model
Scene 1: Company hall
Scene 2: Office area (left) and Scene 3: Laboratory with our products (right)
To promote the product, and also educate the public, we designed this computer game for our users.
Game Rules:
The game is played from the first perspective.
In the contest, players can enter three areas. The first is the company hall we imagined, showing photos of our team members and team introduction. We plan to put on the download link in the brochure in the future to make it accessible to the general public so as for promotion.
Players can then move into the office area, which details our company's products, including product features, advantages over similar products, product modeling appreciation, etc. Players can also learn about our business plans and contributions to the world in this area.
The last area is the laboratory. In this area, players can learn about our biosynthesis principles and experimental procedures to better understand our products and design concepts. In this area, our peripheral goods are also displayed.
The game was developed to visualize who we are as a company but also to give the public a better understanding of our projects and our contributions.
Introduction video:
