Overview:
We are collaborating with the Google Stadia team to design a game that takes full advantage of Google Stadia’s State Share feature, a groundbreaking aspect of the Stadia platform that gives players the ability to share their game saves with others, allowing their friends or strangers the ability to “jump” into their game saves, at the click of a link. To that end, we have spent this semester prototyping, designing, and developing a game that centralizes the State Share feature as a core gameplay mechanic.
Since this is an ongoing project, more details will be updated throughout Spring 2020.
Skills: Prototyping, Interaction Design, Usability Testing, Game Design
Tools: Adobe XD, Unity, Illustrator, Hands
Platform: Google Stadia
Project Duration: 4 months, 2020
Team: Siyu Chen, Liangzheng Luo, Wenyu Mao, Liam Philiben, Jue Wang
Client: Erin Hoffman-John, R&D Creative Lead @ Google Stadia
What’s State Share? Research & Initial Brainstorming
We started this development process by conducting secondary research on not only the State Share feature, but also the Stadia platform as a whole.
Stadia is a cloud gaming platform that allows people to play games on everything from their TV to their mobile phones.
State Share is a unique feature on Stadia that allows people to share moments in games with others and invite them to jump into the exact moments.
We raised a lot of technical questions regarding the State Share feature in this process of researching, and with the support from our client, Erin Hoffman-John, we came up with a lot of interesting prototype concepts that appeared to take full advantage of what State Share had to offer.
We categorized these ideas as the following:
Brainstorming & White-boarding
Mix & Match & White-boarding
Building and Testing Five Paper Prototypes
We selected five ideas that emphasized shareability and started to work on each idea individually, creating both poster designs and paper prototypes. I worked on Animal Inn, where players can host other people’s pet from all over the world and share location-based metadata (weather, time zone, biomes, and seasons) with one another.
Early Test
Design Poster
Speed Dating to Explore Directions
After we ran our initial testing with six guests from EA, we continued to refine our ideas and prototypes based on the feedback and insights we received. We then conducted speed dating sessions with nine guests from EA to validate our five prototype concepts after further ideations. By presenting both the posters and the prototypes, we received feedback regarding the mechanics, scope, replayability, and general preference for all of our concepts, which helped inform our second phase of ideation.
Animal Inn Explained
Establishing Design Criteria
Own more control of the game if join early
Leave and rejoin the game to discover updates
Invite large amount of people to join rapidly
More Prototyping to Explore Design Opportunities
Asymmetrical Team Battle - Virus vs. Cells
Split into smaller cells and invite friends to join the team. Defeat the virus team by completing multiple tasks simultaneously.
State Share is used as the sharing system
Virus vs. Cells - Digital Prototype
Virus Prototype Testing
Casual Simulation with Limited Life - Treehouse
Tag a friend to continue the journey as an elf to grow and build the treehouse after finishing a limited amount of life.