Eye Contact by Dark Arts and Sciences

[raw]
made by Dark Arts and Sciences for LD32 (JAM)
Eye Contact is a weapon. People react in different ways...


Standard Unity/Oculus Rift controls: WASD or analog stick to walk, shift to run, mouse or Oculus Rift to look around (you may need to look up or down to get some people to notice you're looking at them), ESC to quit.

If you have an Oculus Rift, it should be detected automatically. Should.

***

4th Ludum Dare entry, second Oculus Rift entry, first published Unity project.

I had plans for a convention full of NPCs cosplaying as programmer art. When they notice someone (either the player or another NPC) making eye contact, they react in various ways: turning towards the viewer, moving towards or away, even blushing in embarrasment (via a material change). Maybe you're a security guard for the convention, trying to find and remove the one real threat in a sea of friends attack-hugging each other...but you're just a volunteer, and the only weapon you have is Intimidating Eye Contact (and maybe microphone volume).

The initial mechanics worked great. Scaring a poor defenseless cube off the edge of plane is surprisingly fun. Then I found out that the standard Oculus Rift camera/player controller doesn't play nice with rigidbodies (aka Physics.EasyMode), and manually handling motion along eye contact lines leads to quaternions...

So most of what I planned didn't happen. It doesn't even look like a convention.

I did get two different NPC types working. When you stare at them, the first type's face will turn red
and they will turn to face you. The second type turns their body and head at different speeds, and will back away if they're facing you AND you're inside their Personal Space. Each NPC has slightly different settings for the size of its Personal Space, movement speed, etc.

There are mirrors on the far side of the room, should you want to stare at your own unblinking avatar instead of semi-responsive NPCs. They don't react to eye contact.

Ratings

Coolness 57% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.71 910
Fun(Jam) 2.26 989
Graphics(Jam) 2.52 847
Humor(Jam) 2.63 622
Innovation(Jam) 3.29 382
Mood(Jam) 3.19 431
Theme(Jam) 3.52 401

Feedback

ApocoNypse
21. Apr 2015 · 02:34 UTC
Pretty creepy! Haha. It would've benefited from some more gameplay, but the concept was interesting.
phi
21. Apr 2015 · 09:39 UTC
I pushed one guy into a cube, so it looked like the cube had a face. I like goggle-eyed cubes.

I'm sorry it didn't quite work out as you planned. Your interpretation of the theme is very creative, though.
monkeedude1212
21. Apr 2015 · 19:02 UTC
Not a bad concept for a simulation, but it didn't quite reach the phase at which its a game.
borgi
21. Apr 2015 · 19:04 UTC
Even if you wanted to do some more thing this is implemented well, good job!
pixelspirit
22. Apr 2015 · 02:28 UTC
really creepy! this is a spark of something cool, i'd like to see more in a post-jam version. also, that's a really clever way to respond to the theme.
Dege
22. Apr 2015 · 12:49 UTC
Creeeeeeepy!!! :) I really appreciate the idea. I'm so sorry you you could not develop it entirely.
chikun Dev Team
23. Apr 2015 · 03:10 UTC
All I see are the eyes now, the terrifying, unblinking eyes, staring at me, judging me. I am afraid to go to sleep. I fear I will see the eyes in my dreams tonight.

Or will they be nightmares?
Tatsu Studio
23. Apr 2015 · 03:46 UTC
oh , that's creepy! kkk , but I liked it ! *-* Good job
rudra
23. Apr 2015 · 11:24 UTC
Pretty creepy ! Liked it a lot ! :)
Somnium
25. Apr 2015 · 05:23 UTC
Ambitious and very interesting concept! A pity you didn't have time to develop the game further.
Jajo
25. Apr 2015 · 18:33 UTC
A bit buggy. Funny characters. Maybe some sound?
thedarknightdu78
26. Apr 2015 · 05:57 UTC
Nice idea, the final product could be really cool.
Andrew Quartermain
27. Apr 2015 · 22:05 UTC
It's a great idea and there's something very uncanny about reacting to eye contact. The red people are scary. This could make a really interesting game.
Shivur
01. May 2015 · 03:46 UTC
Strange but interesting experiment.
Marcos Rodrigues
01. May 2015 · 07:25 UTC
Ok, that gave me a feeling of unease. I really like these kind of experiments! Too bad I don't have a Oculus Rift, it probably would way more creepy!