A world built in 3 weeks for round 4 of the Building Virtual Worlds course at ETC. The focus was on a strong impactful narrative while still building an interactive experience.
The story follows the Mars Curiosity Rover, who one day is unable to connect to NASA. All uplink to NASA fails, and Curiosity is left to ponder its newly purposeless existence. As Curiosity aimlessly wanders around, it stumbles across an anomaly, prompting it to investigate. Upon closer inspection, it identifies the remains as the "powerless" dead remains of its predecessor, the Spirit rover. Upon further analysis, it is discovered that large amounts of sand and dust have clogged up Spirit's solar panels, preventing its batteries from recharging. Curiosity clears the solar panels, and waits for Spirit to regain power. When Spirit finally reactivates, it notices Curiosity, and starts roving away into the distance. Curiosity then follows Spirit, eventually entering a canyon leading into a cavern. As they explore deeper, they enter a large antechamber which appears to be "built" by someone, probably alien. They enter through a set of doors and find 2 pedestals. Spirit enters one of the pedestals and motions for Curiosity to move into the other pedestal. A portal with fractal patterns appears before them, and they consider what to do. Curiosity reflects on its purposelessness, when Spirit suggests they go through the portal together. Curiosity then redefines its purpose as "Curious", and agrees to go with Spirit through the portal.
The world was built for a special experience room in the ETC called "The Cave". It is essentially 3 huge screens (forward, left, right), DMX lights above, and a hydraulic floor nicknamed "Quake". The player controlled the Rover using a PSMove.