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Quiet Life was my take on the farming sim genre, transposed into VR. The game was made as part of my junior year
in college, and my first fully 3D game was also expected to be first and foremost a VR Experience. Every aspect, from code, design, 3D modeling,
music, and sounds, were my own work. While the game is rough around the edges I still believe there's quite a bit here to be proud of.
Quiet Life began as a puzzle game, inspired by other VR puzzle experiences like "The Last Clockwinder" and "The Witness" which itself wasn't designed for VR, but translates beautifully.
Ultimately the puzzle game I had been making was shelved, there was a short list of reasons why, for one more than half of my classmates at the time were also making first person puzzle games,
. Second I was well aware that designing puzzles well is challenging enough in 2 dimensions, adding a third was something I was unsure of my ability to do successfully. Finally attempting to
fully exploit the VR control scheme in the context of a puzzle game simply layered on the complexity.
Ultimately Quiet Life as a farming game emerged as both a pragmatic attempt to manage scope, and as an opportunity to explore the systems that had such an impact on me in the various
Harvest Moon games that I'd played as a child.
If I were to point at a particular weak point of Quiet Life it would be the game design. Quiet Life in the form that it ultimately took had very little to say. Quiet Life takes no perspective, the essential experience is underdeveloped, and the game loop is one dimensional. It's more of a demonstration of the underlying systems than it is a game. If I were to revisit Quiet Life I would place more of an emphasis on creating a meditative experience, I would also implement a system where players are able to decorate their farm so that each player's experience gradually becomes more and more personal.