NOOSHZAD NOORBAKHSH

PROBLEM SPACE

 

What do climate change, space survival, augmented reality, and Seattle's Pacific Science Center have in common? They were all elements crucial to the creation of SARGE! My team mates and I were given the mission to create a space-related interactive game in collaboration with the Pacific Science Center's Summer 2017 exhibit on space. With space being so vast a subject, literally, we had to brainstorm to narrow down the focus of our game. Survival came to mind, space survival to be specific, and the pressing issue of climate change naturally tied itself in to our initial ideas to create a nature/space survival game. The bare bones of SARGE were born!  

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GAME PROPOSAL 

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Creating a game is never simple, and neither was our game proposal. Since we knew we wanted to build towards the direction of a survival game, we had to come up with a narrative that would incorporate teaching players about survival, the effects of climate change, and space exploration. We wanted to tell a compelling story through SARGE, something that would be fun to play and captivating. 

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The story: You are a sergeant. Earth is suffering from extreme climate change. You have to look elsewhere to live, why not space? You must collect food items, basics, and space ship parts within a time limit. Explore the Pac Sci for QR codes, these will contain everything you need. Collect and document the items you find, bring them back to home base, and get off of this planet. 

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GAME MECHANICS

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To put it simply, the way that SARGE works is through Augment, an augmented reality creator-app, and QR codes that project 3D models of items. We found and edited 3D models from model databases, configured them to connect with the correct QR codes, and created a number of unique QR codes. For the final rollout of SARGE, my team and I set up at the Pacific Science Center. We provided iPads with Augment downloaded, ready and loaded up with SARGE, and scattered QR codes throughout the space. Players had 10 minutes to explore the space and come back to the table, or home base, in order to receive points. 

When scanned, the QR codes would trigger a projection of a 3D model to be displayed on the player's iPad. The item would be either a food item or spaceship part. An educational info blurb about the effects of climate change would also be displayed for every item a player found. Players would then screenshot whatever they found, saving it to the inventory within Augment. If a player successfully collected all spaceship parts and brought them back to the table, they would win the game. If a player collected some spaceship parts and food, they'd be able to survive and choose to play another round. Through this simple yet engaging interactivity, SARGE allowed players to have a sense of agency and have fun while playing. 

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INSPIRATIONS AND RESEARCH

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Conceptually, the biggest inspirations for SARGE came from Pokemon GO and No Man's Sky. The ARG element and open world exploration of Pokemon GO was contagious, it was fun and got people out in the world. We wanted our game to capture a bit of that, by encouraging people to visit and learn what the Pacific Science Center had to offer. Another game that inspired us was No Man's Sky, with it's nearly endless iterations of space and strong focus on survival. For our development website, we stuck with a theme of blues, silvers, and purples, evocative of a playful outer space aesthetic

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REFLECTION

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SARGE was a very fun project to work on. Learning how to utilize AUGMENT was incredibly helpful​. Knowing that our "client" was basically the Pacific Science Center also added an interesting perspective to this project. This was the first time I had worked with a team to deliver a working, viable prototype to a tangible client. The end result, with multiple patrons of the Pacific Science Center playing our game, was satisfactory to my team mates and I. For future game projects, I believe that using apps like AUGMENT would be helpful, but not to be relied on too heavily. I look forward to engaging in playful projects in my career as a designer. 

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