VR Game Increases Awareness

Services

Experience Design

Technologies

3d studio max
Archicad
Unreal Engine4

Background

When Symphony Solutions opened an office in Krakow, it had no market presence and no awareness. This was an issue, because the company needed to hire multiple software developers within one year in an industry where demand for engineers outpaces supply.

Issue

How to establish presence in Krakow and create quality awareness for Symphony Solutions among primary target prospects quickly and effectively.

Sizing up the situation

The first decision was to participate in big events in spring/summer 2018. These events attracted 1,200 to more than 2,000 engineers in the prime target hiring group, and Symphony Solutions needed to get noticed among dozens of exhibitors.

The idea was to showcase the unique culture of Symphony Solutions in a compelling way, versus the typical gift give-away and high value raffles. As a Dutch company, we had several distinguishing cultural assets:

A very cool office inspired by a Dutch town, where green Dutch-themed meeting rooms form the perimeter of a big, green, open park setting.
Two life-size Dutch Friesian cow replicas.
Highly popular mascots, Mr. and Mrs. Cannabis.

The idea was to leverage these assets in a fun, creative way to engage visitors to the unique, welcoming culture of Symphony Solutions.

Solution

The solution was to develop a VR game called the VR Quest, set in the open park of the Symphony Solutions office and the adjoining Amsterdam Café, where players with VR headsets ‘catch’ as many strategically placed Mr. and Mrs. Cannabis figures as they can. They had one month to develop, refine, and test this prior to the first event in Krakow.

How this was done

The headset was HTC Vive.
A 3D model of the office was made in Archicad.
3D Max was used to prepare texture, correct geometry, and export the unwrapped 3D model to UE4 to develop the game.

The VR quest was developed in UE4, and Blueprints Visual Scripting was used to set up scene dynamics, controllers, and interaction.

The 3D model from Symphony architects was used as base for the quest environment, where Mr. and Mrs. Cannabis moved throughout the park and café, playing cat and mouse with the player, ‘catch me if you can.’ It took each player about 7 minutes to complete the game.