Level designer | GAME designer | Educational, Puzzle, Mobile | Unity
Summary
"STARS Anatomy" is an educational mobile app developed in Unity by Army Game Studio for use as a supplement to high school-level anatomy courses for instructors and students.
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The focus of the app is on human anatomy, specifically the bones of the skeleton. To increase accessibility to students, the app reinforces content through different learning styles in four distinct sections: Quest, Explore, Challenge, and Bone Hunter.
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Players can engage in a 30-level puzzle/adventure game featuring tiny dinosaurs in Quest, learn about bones on the interactive 3D skeleton (also available in Augmented Reality for compatible devices) in Explore, or test their knowledge on bones quiz-style in Challenge or flashcard-style in Bone Hunter.
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Appropriate and appealing for use in classrooms for both teachers and students
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Reinforce learning through a variety of ways:
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Quest - ​Passive
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Explore - Referential
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Challenge and Bone Hunter - Active
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DESIGN GOALS & TRAILER
DEVELOPMENT
GAME: STARS Anatomy
ENGINE: Unity
GENRE: Educational, Puzzle
FEATURES: Mobile, AR
DEVELOPMENT TIME:​ 1 year
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RESPONSIBILITIES
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Quest Section (Level Concept, Design, Progression, Pacing, etc.)
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High-Level Concept and Design
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Design Documentation and Mockups
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Level and Sequence Storyboards
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Voice Recording for Tinysaur Anky
Let's Play
As the sole game designer on the team tasked to develop STARS Anatomy (the spiritual successor to the previous installment STARS Elements), I started my role on the project by coming up with and pitching the game style/mechanics and theme. As we entered production, I focused my efforts on developing the Quest section.
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Given the requirement of "mobile app useful and appealing for teachers teaching high-school level anatomy courses and their students," there were a few things we nailed down early on:
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Narrowing the broad subject of Anatomy to focus on the bones of the human body;
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A game component (Quest), a reference component (Explore), and a quiz component (Challenge);
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A theme of tiny dinosaur ("Tinysaur") archaeologists who learn about the human skeleton through excavation;
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QUEST
INITIAL CONCEPT & PLANNING
Now that we had our theme and subject, next was figuring out how we wanted to represent and organize the content in our app.
My first inclination was to categorize bones based loosely off the axial and appendicular groupings of bones taught in anatomy courses.
From there, the Torso-Arms-Legs-Cranium, or "TALC" system was born. After TALC was okay-ed for bone categorization use by anatomy instructors and our subject matter expert, we forged ahead in using it for bone groupings throughout the app, a decision that helped shape the game design and level progression for Quest.
Very early doodle concept for Tinysaurs!
GAME DESIGN
Out of three initial game mechanics pitches, what we ultimately settled on for the Quest section was a physics-based game where players launch Tinysaurs from a fun plunger, AKA "flunger" to break through barriers and excavate bones. With the timeframe given for production, we decided it would be reasonable number of levels to develop was 30 levels.
The core gameplay loop per level became:
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1) Launch Tinysaurs
2) Break rocks
3) Collect bones and bonuses
4) Accrue points
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Depending on points accrued by the completion of a level, a player could receive between 0-3 golden skulls. To progress to the next level, the player must complete the level with at least one golden skull, which is achievable by successfully collecting each bone in the level. Every 5 levels, there is a locked gate that requires a certain number of golden skulls.
From there, we get our secondary gameplay loop:
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1) Complete levels
2) Complete activity nodes
3) Get golden skulls
4) Unlock gates
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Apart from levels, dotted along the path are what we called activity nodes. These nodes are both a chance to reinforce learning through different interactive means as well as give players the chance to amass more golden skulls in different ways.
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The inclusion of activity nodes give players not as adept at maxing out the Tinysaur levels an alternative to get skulls so they could still progress through Quest and fulfill the gate requirements.
Activity Node and Gate
Example of engaging in the "Identify the Bone" activity node to get enough skulls to proceed
LEVEL DESIGN
My largest responsibility and contributions to this project lay in the levels. I muscled my way through 30 levels from paper-drawn concept to set up to testing to polish over the course of this project's year-long production cycle.
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Because I was in charge of the Quest section as well as the only game designer on the project, this meant I had to plan out how the levels played, what assets and Tinysaurs to include in each level, balance the distribution of points, and build and test the levels for difficulty and success rate. Along with the minutiae of specific levels, I also took care of the overarching pacing and progression from level to level, taking our project goals and player attention and interactivity into consideration throughout development.
Something that helped me organize the many parts I needed to keep track of was making tables in Microsoft Excel. I had four different types of Tinysaurs (with unique abilities), many human bones, bonus items, and various Tinysaur-affecting terrains to consider in both individual levels and in sections of levels.
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Organization and documentation became crucial to development and iteration of the levels. Being able to see details as well as how each part related to each other as a whole allowed me to better balance and iterate on each level for usability, difficulty, and context.
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Creating mockups and drawing up storyboards also helped with planning out sequences, player progression, and rewards.
Unlocking New Tinysaur and Levels
My work on developing and iterating upon the Quest section of STARS Anatomy resulted in a number of outcomes that combined initial core groundings and pivots made as the game direction evolved. The gated level sections, as well as the activity nodes within, increased in completion difficulty while adhering to my original TALC system of bone categorization. In my attempts to introduce new gameplay elements with appropriate learning curves based on cognitive pacing, the team and I were able to come up with ways to include and work towards a good balance of topical learning and entertainment, like the learning activity nodes.
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In the process of seeing these 30 levels through from start to finish - individually and in relation to each other and the rest of the app - I have gained a better understanding and appreciation for level design and the planning that good, holistic design necessitates. I worked closely with programmers and artists to ensure we were on the same page for the vision of the game and the combination of early planning, flexibility, and open communication across disciplines helped me improve as both a designer and as a teammate.
The first level of our Tinysaur expedition
A view from the Quest map!
