Keepin’ it Classy

Class Interactions in Cosmonious High

Our last four devblogs have been all about that initial WORLD pillar of Cosmonious High: the space you’re in, the characters you meet, the overall story. But that world pillar - Welcome to Alien High - is just the first of three guiding principles for the game. 

This blog kicks off a new series of deep dives around Cosmonious High’s second guiding pillar: 

Interaction is Everything

What do we mean by ‘Interaction is Everything’? Well, let’s show you by taking a tour through the Chemosophy Classroom.

Waxing Chemosophical

Chemosophy was our initial prototype class for Cosmonious High. It went through more iterations than any other class experience - nearly five completely unique versions! 

We started the design process by brainstorming the most archetypal aspects of a chemistry class. In every version we tried, there was always one interaction at the core: mixing chemicals. Whether it was exploding volcanoes, elephant toothpaste, or green fire, the idea of using chemicals to make fascinating and messy results resonated with everyone.

That said, there are near-infinite ways to accomplish the general idea of ‘mixing chemicals’ -- so next we homed in on what specific actions we wanted. 

We have to go deeper.

Excuse Our Verb-iage

Breaking down an interaction has two parts: the verb of the action and the nouns involved in it (Thanks, second grade English teachers!). Or: what you’re doing, and what you’re doing it with.

We broke ‘mix chemicals’ down into more atomic actions: fill, pour, measure, stir, heat, cool, watch. You can see just how many of those happen all in this one short clip:

Did someone ask for Stickium?

And of course, every verb has to feel good in VR. The bunsen burner has a big clicky dial, stirring registers whether you go fast or slow, and the fluid inside a beaker jiggles as you carry it. Our goal is to set the standard for hand interactions in the industry. That means no matter how small the action, it needs to be intuitive, responsive, and satisfying.

A-Noun-ncing: Objects!

When picking objects, we once again fell back on our accessibility standard: what are folks’ expectations in a chemistry class? Twisting tubes, beakers, stir sticks, sinks and faucets, bunsen burners? We included as many as we could … yes, even volcanoes.

Some of these objects are relatively simple. A stir stick is just a pickupable (our internal word for the most basic object that you can pick up and interact with). A beaker is a pickupable that has a fluid container (adding verbs like dip, pour, fill). 

From there, we get objects with custom scripts. Spray or pour fluid onto a petri dish to make it grow cool cells. Fill the volcano with fluid and prepare for an explosion.

But, for each class, we wanted one standout station: one deeper, more complex locus of interactions on top of the pure physics joy of our pickupables. 

Owlchemizing the Alchemizer

The alchemizer was our solution (get it?) for fusing the archetypes of chemistry with systemic gameplay. Find formulas, stir things up, turn on your bunsen burner—all our integral interactions and player expectations combined into one cohesive station with loads of possibility.  So how does it work?

“I just asked myself, what would I wanna do in a chemistry class? And I thought, man, I just really wanna blast something with heat, stir it violently, and make it go POOF!!! That was my design process.” - Zi Ye, Expert Engineer

The player starts with three Fundamental Fluids at their station. Adding any TWO (or more) to the alchemizer will bring up a panel to show the solution progress. Players need to stir the mixture while it’s either hot or cold to get a variety of different results. Certain combinations will yield new Fundamental Fluids, while others… well… 

Why get it right when getting it wrong is so good?

Some formulas are in your Chemosophy textbook; others you’ll have to discover for yourself.

Sticky Preview

So what can you expect to make with the alchemizer? One of our favorite new fluids is Stickium.

STICKIUM

Stickium coats objects in a neon orange gunk that—you guessed it—is VERY sticky. Stickium things to walls, stickium things to each other, stickium things in your mouth. 

"We knew we were onto something with Stickium because developers would frequently say things like, "But what if a player sticks this to that?". It's exciting when prototypes cause explosions of strange new possibilities that we need to support, because we know players will be able to find even stranger ones!" - Graeme Borland, Gameplay Director

Interaction With Everything

If interaction is everything, then it’s vital that everything can adhere (get it) to the same underlying systems. Behind the scenes, Stickium expands on Owlchemy's well-loved attach tech, creating dynamic attach relationships on contact. It definitely isn’t a precise science, but as you can see, there’s plenty of room for creativity. Not only do individual interactions feel intuitive and responsive, but entire systems of interaction are held to the same standard.