I'm A Tree

Brief Introduction

I’m A Tree is a serious first-person VR tree simulator running on Oculus Rift. Players will experience the whole life of a tree. Players will use their eyes and mouse to collect the sunshine and water to grow themselves. Beginning as a little short tree, players will become a heaven tree eventually. Every time players grow higher, they will rediscover the world.

My Role in the Team

I’m A Tree is developed by a team of 4. I was the project manager, game designer, and game developer in the team.

As the project manager, I made up the development plan, decided the priority of each task, and kept eyes on the progress to ensure the project can be finished before the deadline.

As the only programmer in the team, I learned how to develop VR games within Unity Platform, including how to implement features (UI and controls), test features, and run on Oculus Rift. I collaborated effectively with the artist to integrate assets into features while preserving artistic integrity and performance.

As the game designer, I started from the concept of growth and characteristics of Virtual Reality. I wanted a concrete living thing to represent the abstract concept. To avoid dizzy experience, I wanted the living thing to be static so that the game can keep the storytelling emergent. Therefore, I found trees are a smart choice. Trees are naturally static but have obvious change after growth. In that way, I can build an immersive environment narrative with a reasonable emergent storytelling. The feedback from players proved that.

Background

I gained the opportunity of the summer academic program of Hong Kong Polytechnic University in July 2015. I collaborated with master students from Digital Media and finished I’m A Tree at the end of the program.

You can watch a video about I’m A Tree on YouTube or download it for Mac or PC.

Visual Showcase