At the start of this project, I wanted my childhood/youth room to act as a main menu where you could execute and play all the other 11 episodes. This episode was called "Enter That Room" as was until November listed as Episode #1.

However, I felt I needed a storyline and concept that travels through time and what better way of doing that is by using a Time Machine concept. This resulted in Episode #1 to actually be the end of the entire VR experience, now called Episode #12. So, once you have travel back in time through Episode 1 to 11 (and made it through EACH level), you will at the end be brought to my very room recreated for VR where you will find bonus material, behind the scenes stuff, but also other goodies not yet told about. It will be a mega multimedia blast of stuff to explore, even in the very last level/episode!

The storyline now goes into something that takes heavy inspiration from a Norwegian TV-Show for kids back in 1982 here in Norway. The show was called "Brødrene Dal og Spektralsteinene" (roughly translated into The Dal Brothers and the Spectral Stones", which dealt with the concept of using a ROSE CUT DIAMOND to trigger a time machine, which enabled them to find another rose cut diamond which all inserts into a panel inside a time machine they built. After 10 stones their journey ended. They travelled back to different times of history.

Which is EXACTLY what my project is about. This is a perfect inspiration.

So using that as base inspiration I expanded the original number of stones from 10 to 12, as 12 hours or 12 months is basically for humans considered "time". A clock goes from 12 to 12, so it made perfect sense as my project was "Moment In Time" and the fact that we travel to different time periods of my childhood memories and the computer and movies that made an impact, big or small, that I have never forgot for some reason.



Since January 2022 I had created a number of test projects in Unity to basically trial and error many ideas, trying to learn code, graphics, optimization, treatment of URP and generally testing out ideas on the Oculus Quest 2 headset. During the months following all the way into November 2022, each episode was a single stand-alone project, but as it grew bigger and bigger for the current 6 episodes in development, I figured I need to start re-using code, textures and working mechanics into 1 single project.

Naturally, the projects must be merged, as the 13th scene of the entire project is basically the Time Machine which let us load the next level, all 12 of them from a single place within the running experience on Oculus Quest 2. The weeks ahead I will further stablize and unify most of the code so it can work across all episodes, this also includes certain development tools used to design landscape or to move objects around in VR building some of the scenes inside the headset, then exporting the coordinates and more back into Unity with some simple web-server and other tricks of code. These things will not be part of the final product of course, as I am not creating any sandbox experience here. Its just easier to place objects, design terrain inside a VR 3D view than on a 2d flat screen with mouse and keyboard.

During rest of December I will also reveal the title screens, splash screen graphics for all the Episodes, but also where the inspiration came from. Check "Update #2" on my frontpage.

I'll leave with some screenshots of the now successfully merged 6 episodes taken from the current state of the Unity project. You can also see the famous Time Machine called Stjernegris (StarPig in english), but of course for this project that name means nothing, so I simply replaced that with "Moment in Time" instead. During december I will start to create a very crude loader system so I can switch back and fourth to other Episodes from this time machine and its Diamond button panel. I might post some videos too when I have a working loading system.

I suppose during end of December, or at least in January 2023 I can start to design the early concepts of the other missing 6 Episodes which will be a fun things to do, as I need to fly an helicopter, fly an spaceship, create some special rotated 90-degree upwards view along with some medieval and western concepts. Loads of ideas and concepts planned, so I guess 2023 will be quite an entertaining year in which I will just end 2022 with the same as I ended 2021 with "I hope I have something ready for Christmas 2023 on AppLab or, heavens only know, on the offical Oculus/Meta front store - at the end of all this?)

Either way, if the entire project falls flat and dead from day 1 its released, I can only rest assure that it was a great way of learning Unity and VR mechanics which can serve as a good starting point for the next project planned after this which will "blow" us away, literally. I will not reveal anything from that far-future project, only that it will be a single stand-alone game with some elements never seen before in any game. The concept, title and mechanics and score system have already been documented (with the help of my daughter), but the website will not be updated with anything before its really ready for public. So, give it 1-2 years, and we'll see :-)