Nosquito
Nosquito is an AR game where the player kills mosquitoes to help the Character, Dave to get a good professional photo.
Collaborators
Artist Kayi Ng
Programmer Zibo Ye, Amber Griffith
Sound Design & Producer Gillian Ryan
My role
Designer & Artist
Texture, animation, and graphic
Platform
Hololens 2
Tools
Maya, Unity, Adobe Creative Suite
Timeline
2 weeks
Prompt
Create a highly interactive world where the player must help Character A achieve a goal. Character B stands in the way of that goal in some fashion, and is frightening to Character A. Character A’s goal must be obvious. When Character A achieves their goal, this “state change” must also be clear to the audience. Ideally, the interaction of the guest(s) are critical to Character A achieving their goal.
Design Process
Prompt
Two things we need to consider for the prompt is Fear and Goal. Starting with fear, we brainstormed many possibilities. Cat and fish, dragon and knight, coronavirus and human, etc. But mosquito stood out to us because the fear of mosquito is universal. It is something most of us have experienced before. The second we hear the buzzing, we are reminded of the sleepless nights and itchiness. Mosquito also works well for an AR game because the player would have to look around him to see where the mosquitoes are coming from in the environment. Once we decided on mosquito as Character B, we were able to figure Character A and the goal quickly. Character A, Dave is afraid of mosquitoes. He cannot get a good professional photo if he has bites all over him. Player must help Dave get rid of mosquitoes in order to get a good photo. Depending on player’s performance, the photo Dave gets is different. The better the performance is, the happier and better-looking Dave is.
Platform
With the advent of augmented reality, games are no longer locked behind a screen. How can we create an AR game world that exists in the reality together with the player? Not be constrained to a limited place, such as a table or a wall. To accomplish this goal, it is important to not overbuild the game environment. Only create limited objects/characters and let them occupy the space wherever the player is.
Intro
We created a short intro to tell the player what the goal is and teach the pinching mechanics of the game.
Gameplay
This is a video showing a classmate playing the game with Hololens 2.
Animation and Game Details
I had the opportunity to create 3D animation for the first time in this project. I was responsible for the texture and animations of the mosquitoes. I tried to pay attention to details and make the motions more dynamic.
One game detail we focused on was distinguishing two types of mosquitoes we created. The red-and-black ones are smaller, harder to kill and more deadly, causing a purple bite instead of a red bite.
Reflection
There are a few game design details we would focus on if we had more time to work on this project.
Better interest curve. Although we designed three waves in the game, first wave only has the black-and-white mosquito. Second wave only has the more deadly black-and-red mosquito. And third wave has both. It is not enough for the interest curve. For the third wave, we need a more exciting event, such as one giant mosquito picking up Dave etc.
Differences between the two types of mosquitoes is not clear enough to the players. Although they cause different damage, different bites, the players can’t immediately know the black-and-red one is more deadly. One potential solution is to make the immediate damage more visible to the player. For example, black-and-white one causing -1, black-and-red one causing -2.
Dave’s facial expression is too static to show fear effectively. Some animation could help express the emotion better.
