Project Overview
Team 5SS (Five Sided Square) is an ETC Student Pitch Project for fall of 2011, located in the Silicon Valley Campus. Our project goal is to create a table-top multi-player game using a recently introduced platform, Sifteo Cubes. Currently Sifteo Cube games primarily target younger users and children, we hope to bring the platform into the hands of 18-35 year old gamers through the game that we will create this semester.
We hope to provide a fun and immersive board game experience for our target players. Ultimately we aim to bridge the gap between traditional table top gaming and new interactive technologies by researching and designing a table top game that suits the tastes and play styles all gamers.
The Process
Contextual Interviews
We started the project semester by conducting contextual interviews with our target audience (18-35 year old gamers) while they played with Sifteo Cube games for the very first time. This allowed us to observe how new users interact with Sifteo Cubes, how they learn the interactions, and what they find the most enjoyable about using them. Through this process we learned that neighboring cubes (placing two cubes next to each other) is usually the first interaction the user figures out and that shaking the cube could be extremely satisfying provided that the cubes had appropriate feedback.
Looking at Existing Games
We decided to take a close look at tile based board games to help us brainstorm how Sifteo Cubes could enhance the experience of board games. We chose tile based games because neighboring cubes is a core interaction and the closest board game version of that action is placing tiles. We played Wings of War, Zombies!!, Betrayal on house on the Hill, and many more other board games to help us think of initial game design ideas.
Prototyping
For the next step of the process, our game designers each came up with various game ideas and prototypes which we playtested and iterated on daily. During this process, I helped game designers flesh out and playtest specific intents such as - How can we teach people to place cubes in a specific pattern? My method was to print out images on square sheets of paper and handing them to various people without instructions and just observe what they do. In this interaction design idea- by connecting the color coded lines, the user can make the formation we see on the center of each cube. The set of tiles that worked for us was:
Iterate! Iterate! Iterate!
The final game idea we ended up choosing was a mafia themed game where the player plays the head of a crime group and is trying to gain power in the city of Miami by competing with up to three other players. Players can gain power by stealing money from a moving armored car convoy (represented by Sifteo Cubes), building realestate, or recruiting for their team.
After deciding on a game idea - we started developing the visual style of the game for both physical and digital pieces. Sifteo Cubes can only display pixel art so we brought that element to both our print materials and game play pieces.
I was responsible for designing and creating all the physical print material such as board pieces, cards, and the instruction book.
