Paraphernalia was the video game I created for my computer gaming course during my last semester at UNCW. It’s a simulator of substance-induced impairments and hallucinations. Earlier levels are more easy to navigate through and will display pleasant experiences while levels later on in the game become more challenging to navigate and depict terrifying visuals. If I had more time to work on my project, or if I had the right resources outside of school, this game would have also touched on the topics of physical and social consequences of substance abuse. 

Over this past year, I had plenty of time to come up with ideas for a project I could work on for my class, granted I was unaware of the requirements for the class project until it started in the fall semester. The two ideas I remember of that I had prior to the start of this semester are a game that parodies different video game genres, and the other was essentially The Caretaker’s Everywhere at the End of Time as a VR game. The latter may have fit more closer to the requirements for the class (which was to create a game about a real-world problem that I have dealt with), but since that’s a six hour long copyrighted album about a topic that I don’t have any personal experience with, that idea was out of the question.
Much of my project was heavily inspired by my own experiences dealing with loved ones who were addicted to illegal and prescribed substances. Many of the proposed game mechanics mentioned later in this report were inspired by Dr. Judith Grisel’s book Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction and the NIDA’s Commonly Used Drugs Charts.

I used an Alienware desktop computer from the school’s Digital Arts Lab for most of my game’s development since my own laptop (an HP laptop with an Intel Core i7-7500 CPU processor with a hard disk drive) couldn’t run Oculus software. I also borrowed an Oculus Quest 2 headset from the school to use for my project. Finally, I used my own standard Wacom drawing tablet to help create the texture file for the photo frame I made. On the software side, I used Unity Engine 2020.3.18f1 to make the game, Maya to create some models, Adobe Illustrator to make textures and some parts of the user interface, Visual Studio 2019 to make C# scripts, and Replica Studios to create the voice lines in the introductory level. The models called trip1, trip2, and trip3 were all made in an Oculus app I found called Gravity Sketch. I also used GarageBand from an Apple PC in the Randall Library to make some custom music and MakeHuman from my own PC to make some 3D characters, all of which I ended up not using in the final version either because I was not happy with how the music turned out, or I ran out of time to include in the game. All the music and models I mentioned can still be found in the Assets folder (after opening the Unity package file) though.

Genre-wise, Paraphernalia is a combination of simulation, horror, and RPG. With what I have so far, the game’s story is more open-ended and up to the player’s interpretation. The paper white hands were the default for Oculus’ OVR asset for Unity, but considering virtual reality’s natural ability for player immersion, these hands could be seen as a blank slate for anyone – regardless of appearance – to immerse themselves into the game. The environment in Paraphernalia suggests that the playable character may have been using drugs for some time. The woman in the photo by the front door could be interpreted to be anyone, she could have been someone’s mother, sister, daughter. friend, or lover who has since left the protagonist’s life under any circumstance the player can come up with, which has led the protagonist into a downwards spiral into drugs and addiction. I didn’t get this far into development, but I did consider implementing different endings that occur depending on the actions the player takes during gameplay.  

The inner workings of the house was where I started to make a level for my game. The goals of such a level could include consuming a drug and then trying to do mundane tasks like pouring a glass of water or doing laundry, all the while being high seeing and hearing things that are not actually real in a lucid sense. Unfortunately, I only made a simple scoring system that relies on grabbing soda cans that are spread across the house and dropping them in a trash can. A realistic aesthetic for this game’s world was what I was aiming for. 

Gameplay involves interacting with objects within the environment and getting a high score. In the previous section I mentioned the soda cans and the trash can. I also thought about including a timer to keep track of how fast the player accomplishes all the tasks in a level and using it as an added bonus for the players score, but this also didn’t make it to the final cut. Gauges for health points, tolerance, and craving (the last two which are very relevant to substance abuse) were partially implemented into the game, but were not finished due to coding difficulties and time constraints. Physical and social consequences could have played a part in the game play by a proposed variable called sideEffectsRate. I was thinking that the sideEffectsRate would be a float integer that starts to increase when the first level is booted up, and makes consequences more likely to happen the higher that rate is. 

Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to properly code all the game mechanics the way I wanted it to be. Most of these already exist in the game but I couldn’t fix all the problems that were occurring with them. I have written down a list of the components I was thinking of including.

Tolerance meter – increases every time the user enters another level from the hub world (SoberScene). Takes longer to decrease the higher it is.

Craving meter – increases after a withdrawal is true. Can be decreased by waiting out the withdrawal or entering another level, but the latter will increase tolerance and make the next craving meter higher and longer to decrease.

Health Points – can decrease after sideEffectsRate has increased enough to activate a side effect.

Scoring system – score increases when player accomplishes mundane tasks around the house. Gain more points by being high. Different drugs do different things, i.e. speeding up movement.

High, Sober, and Withdraw statuses – can affect the view and/or player controls.

Controllers for a virtual reality headset, like in most VR games, simulate hands in Paraphernalia. The game controls are the pre-baked controls from the OVR asset found in the Unity Asset Store, so you have gripping, movement and turning with the thumbsticks, etc. The user interface is just the blue board containing the score, status, HP, tolerance, and craving, to tell the player how much they have of each. 

Environment-wise, I originally made the house with Maya as a single 3D component, but since texturing the model was taking too much time, I opted to use free assets to remake the building from the ground up. With both versions of the house, I decided to make the layout into a square with near-equal sides for the sake of the navigation. Some objects within the scenes can be grabbed while others, such as those in trip scenes, are intangible. In the sober scenes (hub world) I wanted a dialog window to show up and prompt the user to go to the next level whenever an object such as a pill or straw are grabbed, so choices could have been made there.

All of the background music in every scene were downloaded for free from Unity’s Asset Store. Sound effects were downloaded from freesound.org. Music in the early levels of the game are coherent and depend on the state of the player, for example a pleasant high may include ambiance and music similar to psychedelic rock throughout the second half of the 20th century like from Pink Floyd and The Beatles, or that of the modern synthwave genre. In later levels, the music becomes more horror-oriented with a notable cracking noise which signifies the use of crack cocaine. As I mentioned before, the idea of the crackling noise and unsettling music (and even the concept of the game itself) was partly inspired by Leyland Kirby’s album Everywhere at the End of Time. 

Looking back at my final semester, I wish I could have done more with this project and do what I have done more efficiently. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a fun learning experience and a nice introduction to Unity and game production, but I spent countless hours and several nights without sleep to really get
anything to work as it should. If I had my own Oculus headset and a high-end PC, I would still work on my project even after I’ve finished my education career.

So far it might sound like I’m complaining about my faults, but I think I’ve realized my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to creating digital media in general. The most fun part while developing my project was creating different aspects for the environment and the user interface, overall visualizing the world is fun to do. Modelling, level creation, and sprite creation were some of my favorite things to do for my project. I just like making things visually. The most annoying parts of my project had to be the debugging, attempting to find solutions and how-to’s to no avail, and the long build times, so coding may not be my strong point.

A more in-depth look into my project can be downloaded in the link below. Please note that in order to properly run the project, you will have to download and install the Unity Game Engine (preferably version 2020.3.18f1), use an Oculus Quest 2 headset, and use a VR-ready computer with the Oculus app installed.

https://gfk6935.com/paraphernalia-my-vr-game-project/