a junior product designer specialising in digital ux & ui design solutions
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spooktale
what is spooktale?
Stumbling into a rundown bar on a whim, you set out to explore the surroundings only to find the bartender, patiently waiting for anyone to enter his establishment. After hearing the tale of what happened to the once vibrant and busy bar, he asks you to complete one task, and gives you a ticket back to the past!
Spooktale is a light narrative driven puzzle game, which tasks the player to complete their goal- unlocking the bar tenders safe- by interacting with and searching the environment!
For this project, my sole responsibility was acting as a secondary project manager, narrative lead and lead quality assurance. I worked with a team of 5 individuals who programed, created SFX, and created the visual art for the game.
the initial conception
The initial concept of Spooktale was vastly different to the final product.
Initially, the game was supposed to have a darker storyline focusing on mental health struggles, told through nuanced game play and storylines. This storyline was a personal one, told from lived experiences.
The player was to walk through a series of vignettes of small environments as they would spiral and derail. Twisting into abstract and non Euclidian landscapes as the game progresses
However, as this game began development we realized that the project timeline would not be able to cater to this story, and do it justice.
Analyzing what we had created already, we took it and pulled a 180, turning it into Spooktale.
taking the shot
The new story needed to work with all the existing assets which we had already created. We had a bar environment 3D modeled as one of the original vignettes, and assets such as plates and bottles and glasses.
We did a brainstorm as a team, and assessed what was feasible within our existing timeframe and scope.
The story that came to be was a short form, puzzle game in which asked the player to interact with the environment, its objects and its people. It keeps the original idea of changing between two states/ vignettes, although, this time it swaps between the present and the past as the player takes a shot of alcohol from the bar!
As the story was being told through the environment, as a narrative lead I began closer work with the art team to create and refined the bar environment for the new concept.
Once the environment, dialogue and story was set, we were able to use this first functional build of the game to conduct some QA & Player testing.
beta quality assurance and testing
As this was a puzzle game driven by environmental and character driven clues through dialogue, it was imperative that when conducting our user testing that we ensured the target audience was able to solve this problems in order to progress the game and reach their objective and satisfaction.
QA, User testing & bug fiixing was my one of my area of specialty on this project, and as such we conducted various testing types and rounds of testing for this project.
Our primary method of testing was unmoderated, in person user tests, and involved the users blindly engaging with out game. These tests would analyze if the users were able to interact with the game in the desired manner, and achieve the goal of solving the puzzles. Notes were taken to observe the users open and honest reactions.
Once the first round of testing was complete, users were given a change to submit their own thoughts and feedback via a survey. This had both guided questions and also areas for own input.
the last puzzle piece
Through our testing, we found out that players were missing details, getting lost, and attempting to interact with static objects. As such, they were growing frustrated and were unable to complete the game.
This lead to iterating our puzzles several times and re-conducting our tests with the same group of initial testers, and also bring in new testers who were unfamiliar with the project. New puzzles were created, dialogue was changed, and we used environmental elements like lighting and sound to guide players into the right spots.
This iteration continued until users felt that there was a perfect balance between challenge and reward.
reflecting on the past
This project was a huge insight into working collaboratively as a team, and managing differences in opinions.
Being a first time project manager, I was able to learn a lot when it came to managing a team. Working to manage my own workload, keep my team on track, and ensure that everyone's voices are heard. Moving forward, I take these skills into my future projects.
While there were numerous tense points working on this project stemming from scope management, and creative differences, it was a great learning experience.
connect with me
isabella6701@gmail.com
melbourne, australia
website design by me