GAME DESIGN · EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Treasure Box

REAL-WORLD ADVANTURE GAME

Treasure Box is an adventure game for new students to explore the campus and make new friends through play. Players in this game will practice communicating with strangers and know their schoolmates’ cultural backgrounds.

OVERVIEW

GOAL
Create a real-world adventure game for 2 or more people at CCA that generates meaningful social interactions and integrates into their daily routine.

 

📅 TIME
Mar 2019

👩🏼‍🏫 INSTRUCTOR
Catherine Herdlick

✅ MY JOBS
Research
Ideation
Design
Guide

1. CONCEPT

Target Player Group

We wanted to design an adventure game for new international students at CCA.

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Initial Idea

Two groups compete for a treasure box. Through looking for the box, players will practice the necessary skills for their following study and life at CCA.

Magical Circle

The passerby has opportunities to get involved in the game. They may be invited to interact with the players.

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Core Loop

Get a clue and find the next clue, or take the adventure and get the next clue. 

Meaningful Choices

Players choose different options to enter different difficulty levels or spend different time periods. The choices are irreversible.

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The Win or End State

The group that the one who opens the treasure box belongs to is the winner. Because there may be undercover teammates, they will reveal their real identities after getting the treasure box.

2. RESEARCH

SECONDARY RESEARCH

We spent some time watching Korean and Chinese reality shows which contains various kinds of adventure games like Running Man and Go Fighting!. Through watching, we focused on the levels setting, the players’ behaviors and their reactions. 

Reality-Shows

INTERVIEWS

My Responsibility: Interviewing
Teammate's Responsibility: Note Taking

GOAL

Define “meaningful social interaction” based on the interviews.

 
WHO

3 new graduate students
2 freshmen
1 transferred student

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
  • Can you describe a typical school day as detailed as possible?
  • What challenges did you have in the first few weeks?
  • How did you adapt to the new environment?
  • Can you give any examples of social interactions in your daily life?
"I like the teamwork in the beginning. Because it’s a fast way to make new friends. Also, I can learn about team members’ backgrounds through teamwork."

INSIGHTS

My Responsibility: Summarizing

GREETINGS
  • With friends
  • With cashiers
  • With Uber/Lyft drivers
CHATTING
  • Get information
  • Give information
  • Exchange information
TEAMWORK
  • A fast way to make new friends
  • Learn about team members’ backgrounds

meaningful

meaningless

LISTEN TO COMPLAINTS

Need more positive energy rather than negative energy

SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTIONS
  • Collect “likes”
  • Reply text messages when the topics are boring

DEFINITION

meaningful social interaction

(behavior)

The social interactions that benefit students’ social connections and helps them adapt to the new environment.

3. DESIGN

TARGET PAYLER GROUP

New International Students at CCA

PURPOSE

Exploring the Campus

 

Making New Friends

 

Practicing Communicating with Strangers

THE FLOW

The-Game-Flow

THE WIN STATE

The group that the one opens the treasure box belongs to is the winner.

STORYBOARDS

My Responsibility: Drafting
Teammate's Responsibility: Sketching

SESSION 1. FIND THE TREASURE BOX
story-session-1-bg
SESSION 2. FIND THE PASSCODE
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EXPERIENCE MAP

My Responsibilities: Analyzing the Experience and Drawing the Map

Experience-Map-1

4. PRODUCTION

POLISHING

We had several discussions and made some changes to the game before the production. We hope it would be more welcoming for new students, so we lowered the difficulty level of the second session. To be specific, players will make new friends by asking strangers to draw the map of their home country instead of asking for their name and email address. Also, they are encouraged to take selfies with strangers instead of hugging them. The modification will create more meaningful interactions and bring memorable experiences to the players.

MESSAGE SCRIPS

My Responsibility: Copy Writing

We used a message system to send group messages to the players and respond to particular classes of messages. Therefore, we could pay more attention to observing the players and assist them in the playtest.

WARM-UP
To-All
SESSION 1
Session-1
SESSION 2. PUZZLE PIECES
Session-21
SESSION 2. DARE OR NOT
Session-22

MATERIAL PREPARATION

My Responsibility: CoDesign the Puzzle Cards
Teammate's Responsibilities: CoDesign the Puzzle Cards

Finally comes to the production stage. There are no material needs for Session 1: Find the Treasure Box and Session 2: Dare or Not to install. So, we skip to the Session 2: Puzzle Pieces. Here are the questions that need to be considered.

  • What numbers make up the passcode?
  • What’s the sorting of the numbers?
  • How to arrange them on the puzzle?

To answer these questions, we found that the third question has the highest priority. So, we were supposed to figure out what the puzzle looks like first.

How to arrange the numbers on the puzzle?

There are four pieces in total.

The passcode is consist of three numbers.

So, each piece is supposed to have parts of two numbers.

We encourage the players to explore more sites on campus.

So, players are supposed to get more pieces.

The players could only find one piece at a time.

So, the numbers on a piece are supposed to be hard to recognize.

Based on these considerations, here comes a new question:

What numbers look similar if some parts are covered?

After a short discussion, we listed these numbers that the shapes are not that unique: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9. Then we collected 3, 4, 9 to be the numbers of the passcode. There were also alternatives like 4, 7, 8 and 7, 8, 9. Since we have decided the three numbers, we started to draft the arrangement.

puzzle-numbers
puzzle-draft
puzzle

INSTALLATION

My Responsibility: Decide the Sites
Teammate's Responsibilities: Decide the Sites and Install the Puzzles

The purpose of this session is to encourage students to explore the campus. So, we chose the sites that they would frequently go in the future; Simpson Library where students read books and study, A2 Cafe where students usually have lunch, Campus Center where students heat food and meet new friends, and Timken Hall where hold new student orientation.

Thank you for your time! 😆
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