UX Hackathon project involving
designing a game with high
re-playability, resulting in 1st place.
Role
Research, Design, Presentation
This project was part of DubsTech Protothon 2024. I conducted secondary research and utilized user research to identify a design solution for the given problem. I developed user flows and interaction design for the game, and collaborated with my team to make a prototype. I designed a presentation deck with my teammate which was then presented to the Protothon judges and fellow teams. Figma was used for prototyping and ideation as well as creation of the presentation slide deck. We were granted 1st place in our category for this project.
This project helped me expand my team collaboration, create work in a very limited timeframe, and allow me to wear a variety of different hats within a project. This project was a lot of fun, and I got to work on something I'm passionate about.
Course
Dubstech Protothon | Spring 2024
High Re-Playability Video Game Track
24 hour Timeline
Methods & Tools
Secondary Research
Interaction Design
Presentation
Team
Sola Chang
Seamus McPeake
Jennifer Nguyen
Michelle Pei
At a glance
The Task
Design a mobile or desktop survival video game concept that has high re-playability at its core.
(Check out an article about it here!)
The Solution
A rogue like card game battler utilizing variety, randomness, and skill to create high re-playability.
The Context
A hackathon made for HCI students.
Some of my cohort members invited me to participate in a hackathon centered around the UXD/R process (protothon). I had never participated in one before and was eager to join.
Protothon is a University of Washington registered student organization which creates hackathons centered around design.
Anybody can join, student or not, and designer or not. We competed against 4 other teams in our category.
Choosing a topic
We decided to take the gaming track since we all felt confident about our familiarity with the subject.
Check out a link for more information on the prompt below:
Task Given
Create a game users will never get bored of.
Tasked to design either a mobile or desktop survival video game concept that has re-playability at it's core.
Me and my team briefly discussed the "topic" of the game, to get what the player would be "surviving" out of the way.
Me and my teammate Sola handled this topic pretty quickly. We shot out some ideas and landed on the job application/interview process.
This gave me a great starting point for initial research.
While I looked for research my team did some research into what kind of art inspiration our game would take.
The Goal
Research Goal #1
"What creates high re-playability in video-games?"
Secondary Research
Findings a solid foundation from past
success.
With a limited timeframe, I took to some quick sources for information on what makes players want to play a game over and over again.
Utilizing a mix of publications and online forums to come to a conclusion, the consensus was rogue-likes and a sense of randomness (RNG).
From here I took a look at popular games that have this type of content of fall within these genres. Rogue-likes are game with procedurally generated maps and turn based gameplay.
Rogue-likes already contain a high level of RNG, but I decided interpolating another genre of games with high RNG levels could create even higher re-playability.
Card games have high levels of RNG due to card drawing mechanics, but allow users to display skill through their choice of action each turn.
I took a look at some of the most popular games in their respective genres for inspiration.
Some popular games that served as great inspiration for design!
Early Designs
Looping my team in for these findings helped us
draft early designs.
Integrating rogue-like gameplay systems into a card game to make something unique.
I had mentioned to my team that 1 on 1 turn based battles, similar to something like Pokémon could serve as a basis for the interview style battles.
My team and I collectively decided we would do individual game design drafts for an hour and come back to loop one another in for ideas.
Primary Research
By looping in our primary researcher we were able
to get in touch with our users.
Making sure users like our ideas.
Our primary researcher constructed a survey for 12 participants and interviews for 3 of those survey participants.
We recruited participants with a variety of video-game experience, and particularly experience with rogue-likes and card games.
We wanted to make sure that that users who would be playing our game enjoyed the mechanics we implemented, the concept, and that the style was something users resonated with.
Primary Research
After getting confirmation on the strength of our concepts we
moved forward with final designs and prototyping.
Moving quickly!
Because of the short timeframe my team had to move quickly.
After finalizing the game flow and concepts we split up work into 3 different areas, with Sola working on art, Jennifer working on prototyping, and me working on building a presentation.
I was able to utilize assets from the game art as Sola finished them to implement into the presentation. As prototyping segments came out I was able to incorporate those into the presentation as well.
Because of our small team and familiarity level with one another, we were able to provide feedback on each others segments and give ideas on work.
The Final Designs
Everything needed for the final design.
Moving quickly!
With just 30 minutes to spare we were able to turn in our final prototype and presentation.
A presentation was given to the judges of the protothon along with all other participants via Zoom.
A certificate from DubsTech!
Reflection
Lots of experience in short time.
This was a very short timeframe project, and due to that, there was little time to get further user feedback on final designs.
Additionally, the game design itself wasn't extensive. We essentially designed simple gameplay mechanics, a game map, and a single battle. It would be nice to work on this game further and expand upon it.
I was able to wear a lot of hats in this project and get a good feeling for how a fast paced real world project works.
Being able to work on a subject that I'm very passionate about was a huge plus for this project. I'm extremely passionate about game and user game design.
Feedback
"The exploration of the concept is solid. The visuals and graphics produced by the team are excellent, and their discussion of research is thorough. The concept is intriguing, drawing parallels to games like Geometry Dash. An interesting suggestion is to integrate the concept into a language learning like Duolingo for navigating through levels by conversing with different bosses. This would tie the motivation of learning and gaining value from playing the game daily or weekly. The design is fun, and there's a touch of narrative humor throughout."
- Protothon judge team
Small Struggles
My biggest struggle with this project was that the team was indecisive at points, but it was mostly due to individuals not wanting to step on others ideas. Since we already knew one another prior, as friends, everybody wanted to be polite.
There were some points where I had to make quick decisions for the project direction, especially with our short timeframe, and my team was very open to hearing ideas.
Takeaways
Wearing Many Hats
I was happy to be able to work on so many sectors of this project at different points including project management, UX designer, UX researcher, and having to build a presentation.
Tight Deadlines
This was my first time working on a project with an extremely short turnaround time for a "finished" project preview. This was great experience for what working on real projects are like, and I ended up enjoying the fast paced environment a lot.