2 Design Researchers
1 Product Manager
1 Gamer Developer
Design Researcher
Augmented Reality (AR) provides the opportunity for people to explore their environments by placing digital objects in their physical surroundings. However, current AR games offer limited opportunities for a multi-player experience. Verizon approached our team with the challenge of exploring how AR can be a social experience, enhancing human relationships.
Brick is a social game experience that promotes collaboration, problem-solving, and mutual discovery.
During gameplay, players race against the clock to complete a pattern. In each level, the players have individual and joint objectives. The better the collaboration, the better the game!
To start, both players hold up their phones together to spawn the pattern and game pieces. Time begins!
😆
😆
Induce Laughter: a playful, light-hearted environment fosters intimacy in the face of challenge.
Induce Laughter: a playful, light-hearted environment fosters intimacy in the face of challenge.
🗣️
🗣️
Encourage Communication: open, timely communication leads to stronger and deeper bonds.
🤝
🤝
Promote Collaboration: Working together to solve problems helps form trust with others.
💓
💓
Spike Heart Rates: Increasing heart rate has been shown to increase partners' perceived attraction.
Landscape Analysis
Playtest Sessions
User Interviews
Coding Synthesis
Landscape Analysis
Playtest Sessions
User Interviews
Coding Synthesis
Landscape Analysis
Playtest Sessions
User Interviews
Coding Synthesis
Concept Generation
Paper Prototypes
Game Interaction Design
Interactive Design Prototypes
Concept Generation
Paper Prototypes
Game Interaction Design
Interactive Design Prototypes
Concept Generation
Paper Prototypes
Game Interaction Design
Interactive Design Prototypes
a
To familiarize ourselves with current AR multi-player games, we conducted landscape research. After having a better feel for the space, we narrowed in on the game's core goals through a round-robin exercise, collaborative brainstorming, and quick affinity mapping to come to a shared understanding
With our goals in mind, we came up with several initial game concepts. We evaluated each idea using criteria and landed on 3 different viable concepts. To test our game concepts, we had the interesting challenge of creating paper prototypes to understand which idea had the best game mechanics.
✔️ 1: Goals
Does it accomplish at least two of the game's goals we set out at the beginning of the project?
✔️ 2: Feasibility
Do we have resources to build it within the four months of the project?
✔️ 3: Business Narrative
Is it flexible enough to overlay a narrative to give Verizon a way to appeal to their audience?
✔️ 4: Playability
Does it have intriguing game mechanics?
We ran "Wizard of Oz" playtesting with the team, faculty, and students to gather early feedback. Knowing that paper prototyping has its limitations, we had to consider how to imitate the actual gameplay. While testing, we mapped a game mechanics diagram to get a better idea for development.
💣 Surprises were Fun!
Bomb surprises were highly entertaining and satisfying.
When bombs appeared there was laughter, and defusing bombs felt like a success. Some players wanted more.
💬 More Collaboration
Players wanted more collaboration and communication.
Some suggested more co-op goals and different types of pieces that required both players.
🌟 Improve Micro-interactions
Players wanted more satisfying micro-interactions, fun animations, or even sounds when there's something good or bad happening during the game.
Our developer created mid-fidelity prototypes so we could perfect the gameplay. In this phase, we went through rapid iterations to address the game interactions we could only address in AR.
[Playtest 3] Wall Pattern and Pieces
[Playtest 3] Approach to Pick Up Interaction
[Playtest 3] Observing a playtester's interactions
👆 Need Screen Interaction
Approaching a piece to pick up was not obvious. We observed players consistently interacting with the screen to move pieces. We redesigned the game controls to include touch interaction.
🔊 Too Much Sound Feedback
We had error sounds, releasing sounds, and confirmation sounds. All the sound feedback was confusing and distracting. We decided to simplify these in the next iteration.
📏 "Too Far" and "Too High"
Some blocks were too far or too high for a player to pick up which led to frustration. We accounted for this by defining where and how far game pieces could spawn from the wall.
To improve the main interaction of placing pieces, we landed on a simple "tap and hold". We simplified our sound design by replacing some of them with more subtle cues, like glowing and haptics.
[Single Player Interaction] (A) Picking up a piece, (B) carrying and piece, and (C) releasing a piece.
[Two Player Interaction] (A/B) Both players pick up their side of the piece and linked together, then (C) carry to wall.
[Interaction] Player picking up a piece.
[Interaction] Carrying and placing.
[Interaction] Player releasing a piece.
The phone UI design before and during the gameplay were kept intentionally simple. The goal of the screens is to communicate the required information without taking away focus from the game.
Augmented reality can quickly become overwhelming for the user. It's important to consider the space the user will be in and keeping the amount of augmentation simple.
True reality stimulates all senses, and AR adds to the user's environment through sound, visuals, and feel. Use these elements to your benefit! It will take some tweaking to get it right.
When presented with a screen, people's mental models still heavily rely on touch gestures to perform actions. Consider using 2D interactions when designing for AR on phones.