Overview

Network Nightmares is a Virtual Reality game in Google Cardboard that turns frustrating network debugging work into an entertaining detective game. My teammates and I developed this project in the Triangle VR Hackathon under the VR Hackathon organization. The theme of the hackathon is "tools of trade", and there were over 90 participants from different fields. The judging criteria are design, methodology, execution, and creativity.

Ideas

Networks are very complicated and abstract. We had the idea to use VR to visualize abstract concepts and to facilitate programmers' work. As a Security Network Analyst, the player observes a digital world of branching nodes. One of these nodes is a virus that infects all data transfers that pass through it, infecting the nodes these transfers end at. The player must track the virus down before the entire network falls apart.

Implementations

We designed the visualization of nodes and links that represent networks. The "virus" travelled from node to node with a set of logics we designed. The node that had been visited was marked as different colors to indicate the order of the visits. The player had to look around and make judgments to find the virus. We developed most of the project in Unity with C# and assets in Maya and Illustrator. I mainly worked on the spatial audios as another hint to the players.

Reflections

This was my first experience with VR and Hackathons. I immediately loved the dynamic of Hackathons and the magic of VR. I enjoyed the intensive thinking and making process. It was very stressful, challenging, yet fun. It might sound cheesy, but I did struggle with perfectionism. It was very refreshing for me to try my best and to see what I could do within 48 hours without worrying too much about the outcomes.