Hot Stuff VR

Hot Stuff VR is serious VR experience commissioned by the fire department. Its goal is to make students more aware of fire safety.

We simulated how easily a fire can spread and how hectic it can get to extinguish it. The goal is to try and make students and adolescents think about how they can prevent this from happening.

The game is not meant to be won.

Client

Veiligheidsregio
Ijsselland

Role

Producer & Game Designer

Year

2021

Genre

Education, Simulation

Platform

HTC VIVE
VR Headset

Team Size

4 members

Duration

10 weeks

Contribution

My contribution as Producer

Planning

I made sure to make an appropriate schedule for our team and saw to it, so that everyone kept on track. I also made sure test events were held and that the feedback would be processed into our schedule approprately.

Support

I supported the team with issues and made sure the communication between members went smoothly. Additionally, I constructed testing forms and arranged testing events for our focus group.

Communication

I aimed to communicate effectively and directly with the client to align their wishes, our skills and technical limitations in order to design and deliver a satisfying product.

My contribution as Game Designer

UX design

I made it my goal to make this product as user friendly as possible and made sure to test my designs with a test group. Additionally, I took care of all sound design to add to the feel of the product.

UI design

The UI in this product has been designed by me. The designs needed to be extra clear as our focus group had trouble understanding the functionality of the HTC VIVE.

Level design

After participating in interviews with he fire department and students living in studenthomes. I was in charge of designing the level using the data we obtained.

Obstacles

The product owner did not communicate expectations for this product clearly and did not gather the required testers for us to properly test our game. I solved this problem by regularly contacting them and getting the required amount of testers to improve UX
The team suffered from motivation issues due to recurring communication issues between the product owner and the team. This occured more frequently towards the end of development.
Due to poor work performance, a team member was striked out of the team. We continued our work with 3 members from this point on.

Accomplishments

In spite of communication problems with the product owner, we were able to impress our testers with every update.
Despite losing a team member, I was able to motivate the team and we were able to make the deadline with a satisfying product. The client was very happy with our efforts
The product has been used during an event

"Sanne has made a substantial contribution to this product and was of great importance.Not only in her role as producer, which she fulfilled with verve, but provided substantive and creative solutions with her insight as well.In addition, Sanne is simply a pleasant person to work with: thinking along, sense of humor, collegial, decisive and tenacious."

Erik Jansen

Gameplay

The player is introduced with a tutorial in the bedroom. Once the living room is reached, timers will start to go off and fire hazards will start to smoke for an x amount of time. A smoke detector can be heard to indicate the location of the smoke. These fire hazards will catch fire when he player fails to turn them off or remove them from dangerous places before time runs out. Once this happens the fire will spread.

When too many objects catch fire, the goal switches from preventing to battling the fire. The player can grab a fire extinguisher and start putting out fires.

The more objects have caught fire, the more smoke will appear and will obstruct your vision. This continues until the player character can't breath any longer and dies. A message will appear surrounding the player: "Fire safety saves lives".

This game is designed to lose, meaning the game can not be won. The playtime can only be extended by surviving.