SARAH GONG
Space Bar Game
Centre for Digital Media, 2018.
The Space Bar is a 3D PC action and adventure game that follows the story of a drunk alien that must grapple strategically through hazardous obstacles to avoid being consumed by a black hole.
My contribution
Project & product management, game design,
user experience & interface (UX/UI) design, storyboarding, video editing
-
Set up a Trello board (digital Kanban board) and managed tasks and schedules.
-
Led brainstorming sessions and documented materials.
-
Led in defining the scope, roadmap, and deliverables with key stakeholders.
-
Led in mapping our user journey by creating story boards, user flow, decision tree and prototypes.
-
Collaborated with programmer, designed and implemented user interface elements, such as the health gauge and onboarding screens.
-
Focused on the design of one game level (the level of “dark”) by doing storyboarding and prototypes.
-
Led in user testing (camera angles, user point of view, heath bar UI, ) wrote reports and incorporated the feedback in the development.
-
Created the game trailer and the demo video.
Game narratives
A black hole is destroying multiple planets! Our hero, Mentos, a drunk alien must grapple through hazards obstacles using his elastic body to pull his way to safety. In order to progress to different worlds, he must collect items, and use them to his advantage. As this impending danger looms, Mentos attempts to discover the meaning behind this unexpected chaos. Guided by an ominous voice, he travels the solar system in search for truth.
Level 1 (Moon) The space Bar.
Level 2 (Lava) The broken spaceship.
Level 3 (Water) The lair of Poseidon.
Level 4 (Dark) The portal.
Core loop
Key features
Loss of Gravity
The character and surrounding objects are continuously being pulled upwards and away from the planet due to the impending black hole.
Grappling
The act of grappling from point A to point B. This involves selecting an object to grapple to and also the ability to let go mid-pull in case of impending danger.
Collectible Items
Find and retrieve the items in each planet, so that you may progress to the next surviving planet.
Game play through
Phases of Development
Phase 1 - Concept
The first phase of development was to figure out what the team wanted to build in the game. The team intended to build a space action game where players could fight against unstable gravity and explore the environment at the same time. The narrative started when the bar in the space explodes and everything flies to the space due to the unstable gravity. The players need to click the objects and press the “spacebar” to pull themselves back to the planet. This is also how the name of this game come into being - “Space Bar”, a pun that signify the location of the game story and its major way of controls.
The game environment looks like a fictional outer space space with a planet full of hazards, including lava, water and darkness. There are obstacles (e.g., rocks and barrels) and collectables (e.g., wine bottles) floating in the space. The astronaut character needs to use grappling guns and grab obstacles (e.g., lava rocks) to pull himself back to the planet.
Considering the skillset of our team members, along with the ideal gameplay, this game would be a three-dimensional third person perspective computer game.
Brainstorming
Clickable prototype in Invision
Phase 2 - Pre-production
This pipeline and processes are figured out at this stage. The team started doing sketching, prototype on whiteboard and in Unity, and document all the process.
The prototype aimed to test the core loop of the Space Bar game, i.e., grappling, pulling and floating.
Functional prototype in Unity
Phase 3 - Production
In the production phase, the team was focused on building the minimum viable product. intend to build one level of the game which consists of a astronaut, a lava environment and several floating rocks and wine bottles. Art designers, UI designer and programmers cooperate with each other in order to deliver a playable minimal viable product.
The team have gone three playtests to test the core mechanics, core loops and major features. The results and analysis of playtest will be provided at the end of this documentation.
Minimum Viable Product
Phase 4 - Gold Master
At this phase, the team aimed to finalize the minimum viable product, fix bugs, lock the content and code.
For future development, the team intends to complete all four levels of this Space Bar game with a increasing difficulty level. The in-world environment will be broader and operation of grappling guns will be more intuitive so the players can explore by themselves. The team will also provide options for players to switch from different guns. Above all, the objective of each level and the final objective of the game will be clearer. Additionally, health is one of the major features of this game. The astronaut loses his health if he floats too far away from the grounds, and regains health by grappling collectable objects, such as wine bottles and barrels. A clear definition is needed to quantify “health” – which of the astronaut’s actions will impact health and how much will they consume or regain health.
Agency and decisions in the game
Agency in this Space Bar game refers to the degree to which the character's actions, based on the player's decisions and the game's mechanics, influence the game's progress.
Agency is achieved by offering the player meaningful choices. In this Space Bar game, players will be able to make a number of different choices, such as using “w, a, s, d” keys to look around, shooting rocks and wine bottles, and floating or pulling back.
Players’ decisions in the Space Bar Game
Players need to make short-term decisions when they shoot obstacles and collectable. For instance, when they shoot a rock, they need to decide within three second whether to press the spacebar to pull themselves back or just float away. Players also need to make long-term strategic decisions for the purpose of surviving in the space.
The amount of time given to make a decision and the perceived consequences it has, can affect how the player determines whether it was meaningful or not. For instance, players can shoot different obstacles and collectable, wander around, and figure out a path in the space as long as possible, or they can aim at the final goal and finish the game within a few seconds.