Happy Valley was the first VR game created for the REAL System at Penumbra Inc. There are multiple game levels within Happy Valley, a colorful world full of penguin friends. The penguins and other animals guide the player through various upper body exercises, meant to facilitate physical therapy for stroke rehab, in a more fun and engaging way than a patient will experience in a clinic.

Creating Happy Valley required a lot of research as well as patient and therapist feedback from various clinics where we shared the VR experience. We hoped the fun and cute world would be appealing to all age groups, as strokes can happen at any age, but a large part of the demographic were elderly patients who may not be used to video games, let alone VR. We had to make Happy Valley a more slow-paced and relaxed environment to not overstimulate patients who are going through difficult recovery.

I started with props and architecture work on Happy Valley for the "Chuckleball Arena" lakeside and the chalet in "Balloon Rescue."

"Birds" was the first level I worked on by myself. I created all the assets and assembled the level in UE4.

After birds, I worked on the Riverside area for "Hide and Seek." The building assets in this level have 3 stages. Each time the player revisits the riverside, the buildings change, as if the penguins are building up their town as the player progresses through their exercises. After Riverside, I worked on the Forest and Mountain progression assets.

I created more set pieces for "Paint By Numbers" and "Catch and Glow."

After two years of production, Happy Valley needed organization so anyone in the future could work on the project without problem. I worked with the art director to create a material library for Happy Valley in Substance Painter, so anyone could access the materials needed to texture an asset in Happy Valley's style.