The word-building element is really just there to make the scene more visually engaging. The main purpose, though, is functional. It’s meant to enhance the gamified experience by adding some challenge, and also by introducing objects into the environment that interact with the gameplay.
These new digital “plants” serve two main purposes:
First, they help constrain the user’s field of vision, with long, plant-like forms appearing on the horizon. They also embrace the Venus flytrap aesthetic, reinforcing the overall theme. The idea is to partially obscure distant vision, creating a more immersive and slightly tense experience.
I’m keeping this project in mixed reality because it’s important that the user can still see the physical Venus flytrap installation and observe how it responds at the end of the game. That physical interaction is core to the experience.
By introducing these digital plants into the scene, I also managed to constrain the movement of the monsters. Now, not all monsters move directly toward the user in a straight line. Because the mesh surface for movement has been reduced by the placement of these digital obstacles, the monsters must now navigate around them to reach the user. This makes the gameplay more dynamic and adds natural variation to how and when monsters arrive.
Another layer of diversity in movement was achieved by tweaking the NavMesh Agent settings on each monster prefab. By adjusting parameters like speed, acceleration, and angular speed for each monster individually, their behavior became more varied and unpredictable.
I also added more detailed textures to the floor and plane to better fit the aesthetic, updated the UI to match the theme, and fine-tuned the color palette. All of these design choices help reinforce the atmosphere of a plant-monster, green Venus flytrap world.
So overall, these updates have made the project feel more cohesive, engaging, and visually in line with the original concept.