Gameplay Changes:
Created a new game space and experience with a mysterious 'look', illuminated by programmable volumetric spot lights and leveraging Realtime physics: the Event Space.
The Event Space features replaceable textures and decorations and a central stage that dramatically rises from beneath the floor to reveal a featured Hero object, character, or characters.
For AQUA, this featured character is an imposing, towering digital recreation of the Mask of Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy, courtesy of the 'Muzeul Școlii de Arhitectură' in Bucharest (Centrul Expoziţional Documentar UAUIM). See the real marble sculpture at the Musée du Louvre being held in the right hand of an anonymously-carved statue from ca. 50 BC.
Once the mask is introduced, the Player launches their companion Guide Sphere at him, attempting to bounce or directly hit as many as possible into his cavernous open mouth or eyes.
To jump directly to this scene after game starts press N and then F7.
Housekeeping Changes:
Made many specific object behavior changes, hierarchical changes, and numerous code adjustments to both existing object and Player scripts, as well as Unity Analytics to address the new space and interactions.
Wrote many new lighting, texture, sound, behavioral, physics and collision scripts to address the many new Event Space-specific requirements.
Added some new detail work and collision meshes to existing objects like the 'Arion assis sur le dauphin' statue by Ernest Eugène Hiolle, (can be seen for real at the musée d'Orsay).
Activated Part A of the scoring system, which tracks all interactive objects and displays a countdown timer for each space, as well as the running totals of interactions on screen overlays (for Desktop Mode), large in-space displays (for XR), and on the dashboard console when it is visible (for both Desktop and XR modes).
Made the Player motion in the Event Space responsive to the Player's chosen motion sensitivities.
Added HMD-dependent Render Quality Level adjustment at Startup.
Added keyboard-shortcut-responsive Render Quality Level adjustment during Game Play. '[' decreases Render Quality. ']' increases Render Quality.
Created a new 'Dark Mode' Console Screen for use in 'HIGHLY Motion Sensitive' Event Space game play with the dashboard console.
Added two Melpomene Masks, the Guide Sphere, and a third Trident to the collected items appearing on the Dashboard Console and in the Fishbowl for the final splashdown.
Revisited and fixed many old miscellaneous minor bugs in scripts outside the scope of the Event Space.
Additional reward-based scoring system improvements continue to be made behind-the-scenes, 'coming soon' to a future major revision.