I Will Meet You In The Rain was nominated as an alt.ctrl. GDC 2025 finalist and showcased at alt.ctrl. GDC 2025

 

Xiangrui Zeng: game design, unity programming, technical art 

Olivia Yin: game design, unity programming   

Xiao Tan: Arduino Programming, 2D art

Coco Ma: 2D art

Cai Shuang: hardware fabrication, 2D art

Lancy Zhan: 3D art

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An umbrella shimmering with starlight and a bottle that captures falling stars—two strangers destined to meet. In a shooting stars moment of magic, their worlds collide, creating a dazzling story of connection under the glowing night sky.

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I’ll Meet You in the Rain is a two-player asymmetry co-op game. One player will play as an umbrella and the other one will play as a glass jar. Players will use physical controllers, a real umbrella and a glass jar to control the corresponding in-game characters.

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In a magical world where fading stars are falling from the sky, the umbrella transforms from its usual function of shielding rain into a celestial object that bounces stars away and takes players on a journey through the unknown universe.

Floating on the opposite side of the umbrella, the glass jar is designed to catch stars that have been bounced by the umbrella. Through this action, we want to evoke the nostalgic childhood memory of folding origami lucky stars and gathering them in a jar. 

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At the beginning, players are unaware of each other's presence in the game, but by the end, they will meet at the midpoint and come to understand how their actions within the game have impacted one another. There is no winning condition in this game, instead, we want to capture the poetic moment of encountering another person and discovering how their actions have brought meaning to each other's worlds.

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Unlike conventional controllers, our custom umbrella and bottle make players feel like they are acting like the characters in the game. We want them to engage in a way that feels intuitive and connected.

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Technical wise, we attached an Arduino (Nano 33iot made in Italy funded by Tom Igoe and the Interactive Telecommunication Program community thank you very much) on each controller. it sends rotation data from its gyroscope to Unity through serial. We then mapped the rotation value to our in-game objects to achieve a smooth interaction.