What's the name of your experience?
Maya

Please describe your creation.
I had 2 ideas for the Leap OVR Jam: a gigantic one, and a simple puzzle. Given the time constraints (I would only be able to work less than 2 weeks in it, and after long workdays) - so the simpler puzzle it would be!

I was originally inspired by a kinetic sculpture that used hundreds of metal balls that would shapeshift and form images depending on the angle you looked at it (http://hackaday.com/2014/08/30/purely-mechanical-display-uses-804-balls-to-create-a-kinetic-display/). The whole idea of perspective being the true ruler of our understanding is deeply connected to a lot of aspects of eastern religion/philosophy which I'm personally very interested in, so the theme for the game quickly came to mind.

Maya is, in one of many interpretations, the veil of illusion that we perceive as reality. It is also interesting to me how virtual reality is related to those concepts - almost a meta-reality of a meta-reality, if you entertain the thought that the concept of Maya could be real. I ended up giving some hours to make a teaser to try and communicate the concept, which I'll probably regret when I find out the bugs that could have been ironed out, but I think added a nice touch.

Visually, I wanted something that would really pop in an OVR environment, so I remembered those really gimmicky 3d-movie commercials with things that would fly out of the screen and get really right in your face. That would look really out of place in a movie, but in a game, I think it works really well.

Gameplay-wise, as much as I found the demos of interacting physically with things to be awesome (and took a lot of inspiration from them for the menus), I think the absence of a haptic feedback can be disrupting in the long run, so I opted for touchless controls: if you move your hands in the air and things look like they magically react to some invisible force you control, it's way more fitting to a Leap Motion VR experience because it looks exactly how it feels - you don't need physicality to have an awesome, magical experience. I also tweaked the game to play with the Leap controller on the table instead of head mounted - it felt better in terms of usability and not having to always look where your hands are lets you keep playing and visualize the Journey mode in any direction, which in my opinion, ends up being more immersive.

The wonderful adaptive soundtrack by my good friend Leo Perantoni sets the tone of the Journey, going from a mundane drone in the beginning to a more joyful, agitated experience in the end.

I really wish I had more time to test and work on the game (and I really hope at least Journey mode works well for everyone!), but Real-Life(TM) obligations abound. I really missed working with the Leap Motion, and this was a really fun comeback. Sorry for the wall of text (a few sentences, yeah!) and thanks for reading this far!

Programming language?
Unity C#

Your web site or portfolio (optional)?
http://devoidgames.com