DESIGN SOLUTION
CONCEPT
A murder-mystery game. The idea was for participants to enter a gamified, escape room setting, where they would use provided technology to assist them in solving the mystery that they are physically a part of.
PROCESS
INSPIRATION & RESEARCH
We gathered references and inspiration via Pinterest for the general aesthetic and look of our experience, and would continuously add to these boards over the course of this project. Inspiration gathered included Venetian Carnival costumes and mask designs, high fashion, title fonts, and various assets for different, digital, screens types.
STORY & USER FLOW
Taking the time to map out how users would ideally interact with the experience using Miro, we came up with multiple, skeleton structures of how various iterations of the story and interactions would flow. We ultimately landed on the one featured below, where one player gets randomly chosen as the "murderer", who tries to escape with the fabulous prize, while the rest of the players solve the mystery and try to prove their innocence to win and escape.
User Journey map created in Miro
VISUAL DESIGNS
AUGMENTED REALITY FACE FILTER
After receiving their digital invitation, players would get access to exclusive face filters representing each of the game's characters. This gives users the ability to share and spread the word about the experience via social media. My teammate, Wanda Felsenhardt, created the prototype face filter—shown below—using Procreate and SparkAR Studio.
CHARACTER SELECT ART
Upon arrival to the location, players would get a device with a privacy screen, where they select a character to play as. I drew the character portraits using Clip Studio Paint. When designing these characters, I wanted to create them so that each one of them had a plausible backstory for why they might commit the murder.
The Opera Singer, a fading star of who they once were and not selling as many tickets. The Matador, performing poorly and needing to pay back a debt. and The Botanist, lacking the funds for continuing their critical research.
Visually, The Opera Singer has a "black swan" look to signify the mourning of their career, while The Matador tries to hide under gold, glitz and glam. The Botanist was designed with a very alchemical looking outfit, with robes to give off an almost wizard-like feeling to them. All were designed while maintaining the "masquerade" theme of the game, so that anyone could play any one of the characters.
LOCATION
Taking place in a luxurious mansion, players would go through each room and carefully scan for clues. The rooms we designed for were: the tutorial room, the library, the dining room, the garden conservatory, and finally the ballroom.
My teammate, Himanish Goel, used Midjourney to create the host character and environment images. In the future, however, we hope to further this project by creating the room mockups in 3D.
Library
Dining Room
Garden Conservatory
3D CLUES
Once a player found a relevant clue to scan (indicated by a logo mark) their device would log the item in a collective, digital inventory for players to later return to and review. My teammate, Wanda Felsenhardt, modeled some of the clue items in the 3D apps Nomad and Blender, while I 3D modeled the necklace, seen below, in Cinema 4D.
ACCUSING THE MURDERER
Once the innocent players build out their evidence bank, following their clues, they get one, collective accusation to solve the mystery and win the game. This would ensure that players would have to consider their options with some gravitas in order to succeed. The murderer wins if the innocents accuse wrong or if they get all of the numbers to the safe before the other players.
PROTOTYPE WALKTHROUGH VIDEO
Watch the full walkthrough, with voice over and music, below!
REFLECTIONS
DESIGN SUCCESSES
I enjoyed exploring and furthering my skills in illustration, design, and 3D, as well as expanding my knowledge of game design through experimentation in various programs, including Figma. I think that the project started with a strong vision and that we, as a team, were able to execute on what we set out to do, and I am really proud of my team's accomplishments.
GOING FURTHER
This was a challenging undertaking, but I deeply enjoyed the process of gamifying something that previously wasn't. If I were to continue this project, I would ideally like to explore the room settings more by building them out in 3D, as well as develop more characters and expand the plot of the game to encompass more routes.
But enough about me,
tell me about you!