For my midterm project, I decided to go with a school setting as the liminal space. Originally, I wanted to invoke a sense of unease and horror, similar to the environment in Baldi's Basics. However, I didn't really like the gritty texture overlay of the game, and given my time constraints, decided to simply utilize my variation of the toon shader to set the tone of the experience.
I based the school design off of my high school. I wanted to create a very peaceful, nostalgic feeling, with minimal sounds. To begin, I modeled a few assets in Cinema4D (namely, a recycling bin, stairs, and ceiling lights). The rest of the assets were simple doors and handles, which were created using 3D primitives in Unity.
The modeling didn't take up much time at all, since all I needed were basic shapes. The rest of the detailing would be hidden by my shader. After finishing up the basic assets, I began composing the scene within Unity:
In regards to code logic, all I needed to implement was a first-person controller. The character rotation movement is mapped to mouseX and mouseY values, and the position of the rigidBody is determined by the arrow keys.
Because the experience is very simple, with no objectives or other characters, the sound design had to be very effective in immersing the player in the liminal space. I found a few sound clips I needed from freesound.org, and used Adobe Audition to make some light adjustments to white noise, as well as add some effects such as reverb.
After altering the sounds, I mapped the footsteps clips to the arrow keys of the player, so that they would loop as long as the keys were being pressed. I also set a timer for the school bell to ring every two minutes.
In-Game Screenshots:
Link to Game:
*Make sure to hit 'fullscreen' on bottom right*
Final Thoughts:
There was definitely something very liminal about the environment that I created. As I was playing, I could hear the sounds of student chatter and desks moving from behind the doors, but I could never open them and look in. From behind the windows, I could hear cars driving along the street, and the chirping of birds outside. It was a strange feeling; I felt very warm and nostalgic, but also a bit lonely, because I am unable to look into the classrooms and interact with other people, or open the windows to see the world outside. In a way, I could only imagine what was happening behind the doors and windows, and walk back and forth along the hallways. As the school bell rang in my ears, it felt like I was leaving class to go outside for a doctor's appointment in the middle of the school day, which was always a strange feeling as a student. I also felt that my choice of toon shader was a good fit. The bright colors and hand-drawn outlines made it seem as if I was walking in a children's book or comic. Looking forward, I would love to expand more upon this project, and create the entire schoolyard on the outside.