︎
Ikite Island
by Zhiying Guan


Game Design
     Return
     The Mansion    
     The Invisible One
The Perfect Match
     Immersive Shopping
     Building Virtual World


Interactive Art
What Remains of Our Magic Field

AR
The Shadow Monster Within

Information
Concrete Islands
(Bureaucracy and Labyrinth)

Anamnesis


Interactive story film

Project Anamnesis is a 14-week exploration of interactive storytelling that combines live-action footage with advanced technology to create an emotionally immersive experience. Designed for the C.A.V.E.R.N. system at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), the project utilizes a 270-degree curved projection screen and a 20-foot-wide interactive play area, enabling dynamic local multiplayer interactions within virtual environments.

The project’s goal is to showcase the system’s capabilities, focusing on player interaction design, narrative depth, high-fidelity audio, and real-time user tracking. Team Interactive Story Labs will craft a 5-7 minute immersive journey, giving audiences the power to actively engage with the unfolding narrative. This experience aims to evoke strong emotional connections, allowing players to feel a sense of personal agency while deepening their involvement in the story’s world.

  • Build connection among instructor, team and outside sources through scheduling meetings and communications.

  • Developed an interactive narrative experience in live action under scrum workflow and displayed on a 270-degree curved screen (Cavern) in twelve-week design sprints in a seven-person cross-discipline team.

  • Help with team management, communicate with local film community and Carnegie Mellon Theater Department for creating the budget list, casting, location scouting, props, managing contracts, and securing the need for shooting.






CGI:





Film Shots:

Syncnite




  • The project aims to deliver three interconnected outcomes: 
              1. a multiplayer game published on the Epic Store.
              2. an engaging in-game event featuring an interactive audiovisual performance.
              3. an immersive replay experience that captures the essence of live concerts.

  • Players will not only enjoy captivating music but also participate in gameplay that enhances the concert experience, making each performance unique and memorable. From dynamic environments that respond to sound to community-driven challenges and rewards, Project Syncnite promises to redefine how audiences engage with music in the gaming world. Join us as we create a vibrant, interactive experience where players can connect, collaborate, and celebrate music like never before!

Role

As the producer and coordinator for this project, I build connection among client, instructor and team through scheduling meetings and communications. Also, I help with developed multiplayer music concert on stage experience under scrum workflow that will be published in Fortnite in twelveweek design sprints in a seven-person cross-discipline team.

During the planing, processing, and delivering process, I am able to come up with a project development plan using microsoft project: Project development pdf ︎
This plan includes:






On the right is our demo reel of the experience.

AR Mixtory

  • “ARENA” is a multi-platform VR/AR/XR authoring tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Wiselab. ARENA’s development aims to emphasize user experience design in mixed-reality storytelling by providing tools that allow users to interact with content. In this project, our team will contribute to designing and developing a mixed-reality interactive environment using ARENA.
  • The goal of our interactive environment would be to emphasize users’ connections with the scene. To achieve this goal, we took inspiration from old Chinatown in Pittsburgh. Our team will memorialize its legendary background story to recreate the scene of Pittsburgh’s Chinatown 100 years ago on the ARENA platform. Since ARENA can provide simple user interactions such as moving and tapping, our scene will be displayed as an exploration tour with storylines. Tasks can be activated based on users’ actions.


Team:

ARENA
  • ARENA is an open source, collaborative, web-based, multi-platform VR/AR/XR authoring tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s WiSELab. Recent updates to the platform have brought significant improvements to the user experience and a new depth of interactivity to content.
  • One of the ARENA team’s major areas of focus is improving the platform’s usefulness as a tool for augmented and mixed reality storytelling. To this end, the team created a robust user interface tool allowing users to interact with content in novel ways and developed a real-time volumetric capture system enabling telepresence so distant users can “walk next to” one another through a shared virtual world.
  • The ETC student team will create a robust virtual/augmented/mixed reality environment using ARENA that makes use of the newest features of the platform. The team may use models from the Smithsonian Institution’s 3D Digitization Collections. The collection contains thousands of models such as a rare coin from Yuan Qian, China, 290 BCE, Andrew Carnegie’s mansion (exterior and interior), the 1903 Wright Flyer, and the Space Shuttle, Discovery.  The students can also utilize high-end photogrammetry equipment to create digital artifacts of their own for use in the project.  With these tools and assets, the team will create an experience that is historically significant, beautiful, and compelling.

Role

As the producer, coordinator, and programmer on the team, my job is to:
• Build connection among client, instructor and team through scheduling meetings and communications.
• Developed virtual and augmented reality experiences in twelve-week design sprints in a six-person cross-discipline team.
• Revives the history of Pittsburgh Chinatown using ARENA (The Augmented Reality Edge Networking Architecture ) and different platforms (Unity, Oculus Quest 3, Photogrammetry, Arduino, Blender, and Maya).






AR scene in our experience:
















The location based elements: 















Our final demo reel:


Return



“ I was at home alone feeling a sudden depressed. Within a moment of the blink, I can clearly see my actions from a bird eye view. I witnessed myself finding a weapon trying to kill myself, and I cannot control my body. I was floating and my soul was a few inches away from my physical body. I was worried if I cannot go back…”




Return by Zhiying Guan is an art installation and game with the use of Unity Engine, Arduino, and an Arcade Joystick. This work is related to people who are suffering from depression, especially detachment of the soul from the physical body. It also wants to brought people’s attention and change people’s stereotype about how the actual world looks like for a person that suffers from depression.


Initial idea and sketch creating the game





The goal for the player is to control the soul of the character using the Arcade Joystick to return the physical body. During this process, the main character will face the obstacle of the bullets hitting the soul away and prevents it from getting closer to the physical body.







The Bedroom

This bedroom was created using Cinema4D, the color of the room presents a  comfortable and chilling vibe. I was inspired by Y2K and pop culture in the 20 centry. I also include detailed decorations from my childhood memories.






The Character

This character with split faces with glitch in half of the face symbolizing uncertainty and depression. The color of this character also stay consistance with the color of the room. The psychologycal character was detached from the physical character which layed in the bed. The main goal of the game is to combine the two of them.


The Joystick
The Joystick is the key feature of this installation. This was created with IKEA table and an Arcade Joystick from Amazon. I made a hole in the table and used wood working and soldering to inlay the joystick into the table. I also painted the table and the wood plate to made it clean and neat. 

Exibition results

The Mansion


This is a semester-long project course with five-person cross-discipline teams with 2 programers, 2 artist, and 1 sound that developed virtual and augmented reality experiences in two-week design sprints.

  • I am the programmer and producer on the team that prototyped "worlds" quickly using peer feedback to iterate for various platforms (Unity, Oculus Quest 2, HTC Vive, Ardui
  • This game is a two player competitive game using controller ans mouse key. One of the guests play it as an action game with the protagonist who is a little girl, while another guest plays as the antagonist who is a ghost leader and controls the ghosts, and he may use strategies during the play.


You are a girl who tries to retrieve your dead grandma's memory pieces (three objects) by venturing into the haunted mansion; and you are a monster residing in the mansion trying to kill the girl who intrudes on your territory...

"The Mansion" requires two players to compete with each other in different ways: the "girl" player defeats monsters in a 3D perspective; the "monster" player manipulates other monsters and traps them in a 2D top-down perspective. Our creative direction revolves around Chinese traditional folklore and architecture which we incorporated into our environment and monster designs.








Game Mechanism

This game consists of 2 perspectives (2 players): a third-person perspective, and a god view (viewing the entire map). Enemy system is included using the platform of a controller, keyboard, and mouse.

  • Player A: third person perspective 
  • Player A needs to be quick-minded and prone to action 
  • player B: god view    
  • Player B needs more brain, but also need to make decision in a timely manner.

Story 
In an ancient Chinese haunted mansion, the protagonist (player A) has been asked to find her grandma’s lost treasures. Player B, the spirit from the mansion owner, must prevent Player A to escape the mansion and find the treasures. The mission of both players is to escape from the vintage ghost and find the hidden treasure in the castle.


Level Desgin
Player A enters the entrence from the left hand side with a beginning tutorial. By collecting three treasures A, B, and C and exit through the top left, player A can reach a success escape. Player b will be in charge of controlling the monsters within the maze.



Characters

protagonist





Bride Monster



Big Head Monster



Hand Monster



Code construction:
Action state:
  •   Enemy state
  •   Player state
  •   state modifiers
Locomotions
Status
Tracking
UI
As a programmer on the team, I am specifically in charge of the game play in C# and Unity using Controller.

Action state
  • Enemy state (Enemy attack, death, hurt, idel, rotate around player, and set position)
  • Player state (Player attack1,2,3, death, dodge, hurt, and idle
  • state modifiers (Player state: hold input, stamina control. State: add force, animation control, hitbox control, hurtbox control, invicibillity, locomotion control, modifier, specific cancel)


Locomotions:
  • CharacterLocomotion (character speed, force, rotation, ground gravity, weight, nav agent, and update position)
  • EnemyLocomotion (Enemy movement and rotation)
  • PlayerLocomotion (Player movement and rotation)
  • RootMotionToLocomotion

Status:
  • Enemystatus (If enemy health is below 0, enemy defeated)
  • Hitbox (Hit direction, invoke hit result and hurt box)
  • Hurtbox (Hit result after getting hit including knock back action, direction respond to hit)
  • Playerstatus (Calculate the status of player, including player’s heath, death, and stamina recovery)

Tracking:
  • MouseTrackPosition (Track player B’s mouse position)
  • MouseTrackUI (Track player B’s mouse position and reflect with UI)
  • SetNewPoint (While player B click on a position, the enemy will spawn)



UI:
  • GUIManager (this is in charge of the healthUI and the staminaUI)
  • MenuOption (in charge of the option selection in the beginning scene where player can start the scene, select difficulties, get instructions on how to play the game, see credit page)
  • MenuUIManager (this is an alighment script that is applied to aligh size of the UI)


Festival plan: