While OMNIA includes moments of dialogue, its core narrative attempts to unfold through metaphor, symbolism, and atmosphere. Each environment is more than a backdrop—it is treated as a protagonist in its own right: a living system of emotional cues, sacred remnants, and hidden meanings. Players interact with space itself to uncover the story—through light, sound, movement, and silence.
This is not just a game world, but an ongoing experiment in narrative design—one that invites a quiet conversation between memory and matter, where story emerges from resonance rather than instruction.

Please download the build from the link below to explore the experience firsthand.

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Character models and animations were collaboratively developed. I focused on designing main characters and modeling our robot character, and specified the animations needed to support both narrative and gameplay. Zhuoyuan Li (Lejoy) contributed to rigging, animation refinement, material adjustments, and additional character asset development.

This is the game's first and central environment—a city built under OMNIA's control, where emotions have been erased for efficiency. I was responsible for the full environment design: from white-box layout and lighting setup to worldbuilding, asset integration, and visual storytelling.

Visual Direction

The city uses a limited color palette: mostly greys and muted blues, with rare accents of warm light.

• Grey reflects systemized, lifeless order
• Blue adds emotional distance and a sense of time standing still
• Warm lights mark key story beats—like a broken school spotlight or a flicker in an old machine

Instead of the typical density of cyberpunk, I chose a more restrained and ritualistic spatial language—sacred minimalism. Through brutalist forms, controlled lighting, and purposeful negative space, the environment evokes a world that feels paused and observed.

Narrative Integration

The city doesn't tell its story through dialogue. It shows it through what's left behind.

• Broken screens, dead terminals, and asymmetric layout hint at a failed resistance
• Lighting, sound, and VFX are triggered by player proximity to guide attention
• Glitch effects simulate corrupted memories or lingering system failures

Everything is designed to let players read the environment intuitively while reinforcing the world's emotional tone.

Technical Execution

• Built the level from scratch in Unreal Engine using modular asset kits
• Designed all lighting and post-processing to support scene-specific moods
• Created Niagara effects for fog, sparks, and looping energy pulses
• Set up blueprint systems for reactive lights, fog, and narrative triggers
• Optimized for VR: occlusion culling, player guidance, and silhouette clarity

Gameplay & Interaction

The level includes basic but emotionally-tuned VR interactions:

• Navigation: Info boards, spotlights, and task prompts help players find their way
• Interaction:
  • Break a barricade with a hammer to enter the school
  • Throw a brick to trigger a platform drop and access the subway
• Traversal: A moving central platform adds light timing and player awareness
• Proximity Feedback: Lights and sounds shift near story areas to reinforce mood and pace

Visual Direction

Tucked away in a quiet, forgotten corner of the city, the school's environment contrasts with the cold mechanical tones of the outside world. I redesigned an existing Russian-style building into a story-driven school map, transforming it with warm, faded yellows and desaturated amber tones, evoking the feeling of a memory slowly resurfacing—like old film slides soaked in time.

To achieve this atmosphere, I redesigned the Abandoned Russian Building (originally created by MacKenzie Shirk) Map from marketplace, rebuilt materials, VFX, and post-processing to reflect a nostalgic yet slightly unsettling space. The result is a location that feels frozen in the moment before everything was lost—holding onto joy, even if no one is there to witness it.

Environmental props such as posters, abandoned instruments, and handmade signage hint at student life before OMNIA's control. Emotional pacing is reinforced through subtle lighting shifts and scripted visual effects that react to player progress. A custom cutscene is triggered upon mission completion, offering a moment of narrative and emotional payoff.

Gameplay & Narrative Design

The school mission is centered around restoring joy, a forgotten emotion in OMNIA's system. The player's goal is to help the AI recognize positivity by reviving a play that was never performed.

Players begin by exploring the school floor and opening cabinets using VR controllers to find a theater poster and checklists outlining the mission. Three key objectives must be completed:

• Reactivate the school's electricity – Locate and pull a lever to bring power back, triggering environmental feedback through lighting.
• Place the speaker – Find and return the missing audio equipment to its designated location in the Drama Club room.
• Place the projector – Retrieve and install the visual equipment to complete the stage setup.

Once all tasks are completed, a symbolic particle sequence plays, visualizing the "performance" happening in the player's imagination. A hidden item, the Smile Token, is revealed—representing the successful reintroduction of joy.

Visual Direction

Hidden beneath the city, the Subway Resistance Base transforms a cold, industrial ruin into a defiant space carved out by survivors. Its visual language contrasts brutalist architecture with improvised rebellion—torn protest posters, chalk warnings, flickering signage, and deep monochrome shadows pierced by saturated reds.

To support this tone, I fully redesigned a marketplace subway station asset (originally created by Erman Arts), reworking the spatial layout and player flow to align with our narrative goals. I introduced new story-driven gameplay beats and interaction markers throughout the level. All lighting, volumetric fog, and VFX were built from scratch, and I replaced the original textures to establish a mood of secrecy and suppressed volatility. Post-processing was carefully tuned to enhance cinematic contrast, while layered sound design and environmental cues subtly suggest the base's hidden history.

This space doesn't simply resist OMNIA—it remembers. In a world where feeling is forbidden, the walls themselves still feel.

Narrative & Interaction Design

The Resistance has captured one of OMNIA's patrol units, R0v-7, and plans to dismantle it. The player, as Alison, chooses not to destroy the robot but to protect it—modeling empathy in a world that has forgotten how to care.

This level teaches OMNIA to understand kindness through interaction. The player's actions are recorded in a hidden item called the Heart Crystal, which grows as players make emotionally significant choices—interacting with R0v-7 and resistance members in non-violent, compassionate ways.

Key mechanics include:

• Interacting with CCTV monitors to understand surveillance dynamics
• Engaging in branching dialogue or spatial prompts with resistance characters
• Completing subtle VR-based actions that build trust or reveal backstory
• Watching the Heart Crystal respond and evolve based on player choices

The level is designed as a narrative-driven experience, where progression relies not on combat, but interpretation, observation, and emotional decision-making. The player must follow subtle VR UI cues, act intentionally, and reflect on the implications of their behavior.

Upon successful completion, the fully-grown Heart Crystal symbolizes OMNIA's first step toward understanding empathy.