Flourish | Tyler McCulloch | Creative Director

01What I owned

Created original pitch transforming physio exercises into magical spells
Designed customizable 'playlist' system for physiotherapists
Worked with art director to establish inviting, non-childish visual style
Collaborated with narrative director on story structure and characters
Created tool for recording new exercises in VR

02The brief and the pitch

The company I was working for was approached by a biomedical tech company with a question: 'Can you make a VR game that makes Physiotherapy fun?'

I created a pitch where the repetitive exercises required in physio transformed into magical spells. The concept was as users literally healed their bodies, this would transform into magical energy that would heal the broken land around you.

The core inspiration was walking through my local community garden trying to think of a concept. Thinking of how these gardens grow and transform the land into something beautiful.

Then I remembered this scene from 'My Neighbour Totoro' performing movements that grew plants and that became the basis for game.

03Building the experience

The client loved the proposal, so we set out to achieve what we hoped would be an experience that would encourage users to continue to return to physio to engage with this experience again.

I worked closely with our narrative director to establish a basic story structure, including characters that would help guide the user through the experience. Each of these characters represented a common reason people either don't go to or stop doing physio. As the user progresses, they overcome their own thoughts and are encouraged to continue their own health journeys.

Vorn concept art — Vorn here helps the player through the first of 4 different biomes that users restore in their journey.

The art director and I established a look that we felt inviting and would run on the target proprietary hardware. It was important to me that it looked like a fun and whimsical place but did not look too childish as our target audience was not children for this product.

Storyboard from the end of the first biome rescuing Vorn

Session Flow diagram — Architecting the flow of exercises and narrative

04In the headset

Footage from the game as it came together.

Casting with both hands.

A gesture-based exercise.

Working through an exercise beside Vorn.

Walking through the realm.

05Design documentation

Working documents from the project, shown as they were. Select an image to open it full size.

Five-stage visual breakdown of the decomposition exercise, each stage showing what happens during the exercise and on the user gesture, from spawning spores to dissolving crystals — The decomposition gameplay, stage by stage: spawn spores, grow mycelium, grow mushroom shoots, destroy crystals, and the healed landscape.

First-time experience spec showing the glowing storybook, a skip introduction button and the open book with its page-flip corner — The first-time experience: a storybook in reach of the player, a skip button at any point, and page flips that lead into the first realm.

06Tools for therapists

One thing that was really important is that the game has the ability to be customizable by physiotherapists both before the game starts and during a patient session. I designed a 'playlist'-like system which allowed therapists to swap in different exercises as needed.

Dynamic Exercise Playlist interface — The experience also needed an application for therapists to create realtime exercise plans

A very early version of UX and UI. We went through many iterations to show users how to optimally position themselves for each exercise.

The experience running inside the engine editor.

Skills Applied

Health Tech Gamification Progression Systems VR Design User Retention