Game: X.B. - 2513

A point and click sci-fi adventure game created as a 3-person team throughout the Exploring Digital Arts and Media course. Check out the tutorial in the video clip down below!

Starting Out

I was super lucky getting into a team that had different expertises. In the team of 3, I had a writer and a programmer, and I could contribute music and audio. In addition, both the programmer and I have dabbled into some art before, so right off the bat it seemed like the backbone of a game was off to a smooth start!

We first talked about what kind of genres we enjoyed, eventually settling in on sci-fi and horror. From there, our writer led discussions about themes such as man vs. nature, and we explored different storylines and characters to follow. After choosing a storyline that we all liked, our programmer led discussions about the design of the game. Based off of her capabilities, we brainstormed some gameplay mechanics such as having puzzles, inventory systems, stat systems, and branching paths. Check out our Artifact Pitch Presentation on the right:

Managing Sprints and Trello Board

In the calendar, our professor had scheduled deliverables to be due every 2 weeks. Over the summer, I had interned as a Product Management intern and sat in on sprint planning and daily standups. Given this experience, I volunteered to manage our sprints using a Trello board.

At the start of each 2 weeks, I led the sprint planning meetings, making sure we not only came up with the requirements for each sprint, but also priortized which ones would be done first. I also scheduled that every weekend we would be able to playtest our game to make sure it was working properly after each iteration and that bugs would be fixed. Every day I held standups, where I documented the progress and issues that everyone in our team faced. This made sure that any obstacles that occurred would be fixed quickly and give us enough time to adjust our timelines and scope. I must say that the transparency of day-to-day communication made the workflow much smoother!

After each sprint, I made sure to update and reorganize the backlog, as sometimes we would have new or continuing issues to resolve. This made sure that for the next sprint planning meeting, we would be most up-to-date with the current state of our game and eliminate any confusion. I really liked acting as like a "Product Owner" of our project because it let me tap into my organized self and working together with my talented teammates made it so much more fun!

Sound Design + Background Art

Waterfall soundscape in Reaper

Waterfall background

Thicket background

Watersource background

Horrifying plant background

I was really excited to utilize the techniques I had learned from a previous class, Foundations of Digital Music, to create sound effects and soundscapes for the game. Using my mic, I recorded and recreated as many sounds as I could. I had quite a lot of fun reimagining sounds with new contexts, like shredding cabbage leaves and breaking carrots to create bone-crunching sounds. In total, I created 52 sound effects and 4 soundscapes for the game using Reaper. In addition, I also created a musical theme for the main menu of the game, trying to emulate 8-bit chiptunes in older games. Coming from a musical background, it was so fun to get creative with sounds using technology and digital modifications and enhancements. Check out my work on my Soundcloud!

I have always loved drawing since I was little, but always on pencil and paper. A while back I bought myself a tablet to learn how to draw digitally, but never really had the time to do it. For this project, I challenged myself to finally learn! I used Photoshop to make 4 different background pieces and it was definitely a learning curve. But I really liked how I could use layers, it helped me so much in terms of not only doing line art but also coloring and shading as well. There's just so many more things I felt I could do digitally than just on pen and paper!

Final product + Thoughts

Our game is set in an alien planet that holds an underground forest. Through four chapters, a crew of three scientific investigators attempt to solve the mystery of the forest and why it delays the human development of a new planet. As the captain, the player's decisions impacts the fate of their crew. The game allows the player to click around the environment and explore its surroundings. Throughout the surroundings, there may be some items that the player may use to progress the story or solve puzzles.

Coming into this project, I was super nervous because I had never made a game before, much less with a team. I didn't know what the process was like and wasn't sure about what I could contribute. I have learned so much through this experience and I'm super proud of what my team and I created. I'd love to explore this area in the future; it was so cool to be a part of the lifecycle of a product from its conceptual design to its release. Thanks for reading!