A Multiplayer Competitive Game for Jam-O-Drum
Contribution: Interaction Design, Game Design, 3D Modeling
Tools: Maya, Unity, Photoshop, Illustrator
Platform: Jam-O-Drum
Project Duration: 3 weeks, 2018
Team: Jingya Chen, Chang Liu, Jiming Li, Yang-Che Teng, Jue Wang
Demo Video
We designed a fun and multiplayer experience on Jam-O-Drum, which is a collaborative audiovisual instrument designed by a team led by Tina Blaine. In this world, guests are raccoons stealing chicken eggs by throwing bombs at them. Guests work against each other and collect as many eggs as possible in order to win the game. Four guests are able to identify themselves as raccoons with different outfit and characteristics on the welcome screen once they approached the Jam-O-Drum. Once all four guests hit their characters, they share the view from a single projection on the center drum and interact with chickens and other guests. Turning the wheel to control the direction of their character and hitting the drum to drop bomb on their hand are the only two interaction they need to conduct. This two-minute experience includes two power-ups to increase the interest curve and create a more competitive and dramatic process.
Key Interfaces
Environmental Design
Concept Art & Interaction Flow Map
After brainstorming with my teammates, I created a sketch for the characters and an initial interaction flow map.
3D Modeling
Once we decided the art style as a group, I started to create models for the chicken and some props. Jingya Chen, the other artist on our team was taking charge of modeling for the raccoon, as well as the rigging and animation for both characters.
Prototyping
Interaction
Hitting the drum → Drop a bomb at current location
Turning the wheel → Control the direction
The bomb will explore after 2 seconds of warning. The red circle indicates the explosion range.
Mechanism
Throwing Bomb
Chickens that were caught in explosion will lay egg
Raccoons that were caught in explosion will lose 3 eggs and stunned for 3 seconds.
Bomb Cool down
2 seconds before the next bomb generates
Collecting Eggs
Guests will identify themselves base on the colors of their raccoon
Collect eggs by walking pass the eggs on the ground
Collect as many eggs as possible in order to win
Challenges:
Needs to work on the interest curve and potential strategies
Score difference is huge while it’s hard to catch up to the score-leader
Explosion and egg collecting were not clear
Knowing when to drop next bomb was not clear
Power-ups needs more presence
Ending was confusing
Our solutions:
Add power-ups such as mega-bomb and bonus egg to the gameplay
Play test and find out the best number of eggs that will lose when raccoons were caught in explosion to make the game more competitive and dramatic
Add animation of chicken and egg to make the process of laying eggs more obvious
Add particle system to the bomb and the explosion to make it more obvious and dangerous
Add props and particle system to the score-leader
Add UI to indicate the power-ups and change the scale and colors to make it more obvious
Game ends at 120 seconds instead of when all eggs were collected
UI Design & 2D Art
Environmental Design
Concept Designs
