HALP!

HALP! explored what it felt like to reach into a playful world with the first Oculus Touch controllers. Working with a small Fun Bits Interactive team and my brother Chris Millar, we built an Oculus-funded demo for Oculus Connect 2 in summer 2015.

My contribution

I contributed game design, scripting, dialogue writing, voice direction, spatial sound, and music. I also built and maintained the daily task tracker and taught the team to update it as work was completed.

A world that responds to your hands

Players became a giant robot helping a crashed pirate spacecraft. They could solve physics puzzles, battle enemies, and interact with characters that responded to their presence, gestures, and the objects they offered or threw. You could even pick the characters up.

We prototyped with Razer Hydra controllers before receiving early Oculus Touch hardware, working in a special version of Unreal Engine. The challenge was making unfamiliar controls feel expressive through physical interaction, character reactions, and sound.

From prototype to playable demo

The demo was shown at Oculus Connect 2 and later released on Steam. For me, it brought together hands-on interaction design, implementation, storytelling, audio, and the coordination needed to deliver with a small team.