Game Projects

It Takes Two Dogs!
CMU, ETC, Building Virtual Worlds
Pittsburgh PA, 2021

Genre: Co-op; Arcade
Platform(s): HTC Vive trackers, Unity
My role: Designer, 2D&3D artist, Producer
Tools I used: Maya, Substance Painter, Unity, Procreate
Team members: Bokang Wang, Chao Li, Eiko Qu, Nelson Nie, Xiao Han

Description: It Takes Two Dogs is a fun co-op game created in the time span of one week using the HTC Vive trackers. Two players will play a two-headed hotdog dog together to catch food that falls from the sky, meanwhile they have to avoid forks and knives that will hurt them.

Challenges:

Designing a Co-op game without networking
Rapid prototyping
Unfamiliar platform

As a producer, I kept things on track by reminding myself of the time limit and making sure the project is within the scope. I also collected feedback from playtesters.
As a game designer, I designed the theme and mechanics of the game. I also tweaked the mechanics with our programmers to make the game more fun.
As an artist, I created some assets including the two-headed dog. I also drew the background and the UI for the game.

COLORIZE
CMU, ETC, Semester Project
Pittsburgh PA, 2022

PROJECT website

Genre: Edutainment
Platform: Mixed platforms including Arduino, pc, whiteboard, etc
Client: Center for Arts and Education at West Liberty University
My role: Producer, artist, researcher
Tools I used: Agile, Trello, Premiere, Wordpress,
Team members: Caitlyn Lenhoff, Ebrahim Karam, Max Cameron, Qin Zhang, Wizard Hsu, Xiao Han

Description: Colorize is a project at CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center with a goal to create hardware prototypes and documentation for activities that will introduce elementary school students in K- 2nd grade to the colors of the light spectrum and light color mixing. The Colorize contains 4 hardware prototypes made with different technologies. The project is built for West Liberty University’s Center for Arts and Education.

Challenges:

Designing for a specific demographic (K-2 kids) with the goal of engaging kids to learn
Rapid hardware prototyping
Designing documentations that allow our client to re-create the prototypes that we delivered

As a producer, I was in charge of running the daily stand-ups and tracking the progress of the team. I also set up playtests and collected feedback from our playtesters. Often, I would have one-on-ones with the team members to check in on how they felt about the project and themselves. Besides, I made and maintained the website for the project while the project was going on. I wrote and updated our development blogs every week which you can see on our website.
As an artist, I handcrafted some shadow puppets that were used in the shadow puppet activity. I also edited our promo video for the project.
As a game designer, I contributed to the brainstorming, the tweaking and the documentation of the prototypes. I made a short and clear tutorial video for each prototype for our users.

YO-HO-HO
CMU, ETC, Intro to Game Design
Pittsburgh PA, 2022

RULES

Play on google slides

Genre: Tile moving; race game
Platform: Tabletop, google slide
My role: Designer, artist
Team member: Xiao Han

Description: 3 groups of pirates who absolutely hate each other are all trapped in the middle of the ocean. In the middle of the ocean there is a huge whirlpool that is moving very fast and destroying the tiny islands. Every group wants to be the first group that can escape from the whirlpool and land on the shore of the great continent, because on the continent there is also treasure waiting for them. Only one team will claim treasure, and only one team will survive. This game is inspired by Up the River, and has some of its most important mechanics remaining.

Challenges:

Modifying and redesigning a game based an already existed game, Up the River
Designing a theme based on mechanics
Implementing the game in google slide that supports multiplayer

As a game designer, I designed the mechanics and the rules of the game. I implemented it in Google Slides.
As an artist, I made the game board.

Celestial
CMU, ETC, Building Virtual Worlds
Pittsburgh PA, 2021

Genre: coloring game, free form
Platform: Quest 2 VR
My role: Designer, 3D artist, voice actor for princess
Tools I used: Maya, Unity
Team members: Caitlyn Lenhoff, Kayi Ng, Max Cameron, Xiao Han, Tairan Gao

Description: Celestial is a free form coloring game that is made with Quest2 VR. In the game, the player helps the princess to color a small island with stars and bring the island back to life.This game is designed with the theme “feeling of freedom” in mind. Throughout the development, “naive" guests were invited to play without direct guidance or instruction. Our main goal was to create a little world where people are guided by their own intuition and make the world colorful.

Challenges:

Creating the feeling of freedom within the game
Creating surprises that players didn't expect
Teaching players to play the game and navigate through the story without using tutorials or texts.
Organizing playtest with native guest and collecting feedbacks throughout the development

As a game designer, I added elements of discovery and surprise to the game to make players more engaged in the experience.
As an Artist, I designed the environment and built 3D models that went into the environment. I also rigged and animated the bird that was designed as a surprise for the player.

MSG Sphere
Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Interactive
Burbank CA, 2022

Genre: Location Based Entertainment, Multiplayer, Mobile
Platform: Unreal for large format screen, mobile
My role: Game Design Student Associate
Tools I used: Unreal Engine, Photoshop
Mentor: Anthony Russo

Description: MSG Sphere at The Venetian is a sphere-shaped music and entertainment arena being built in Paradise, Nevada. The sphere-shaped venue will have a capacity of 17,500 and feature the world's largest LED screen. My team focuses on creating large-scale multiplayer interactive experiences that could take place in the Sphere.

Challenges:

Designing a multiplayer experience for location based entertainment
Designing for a new platform using existing technologies

As a game designer

Made a proof of concept of a feature for a large-scale multiplayer game designed for the MSG Sphere in Unreal Engine
Collaborated with the UI Designer and Art Director to design the narratives and the UI for the onboarding phase of the game
Storyboarded and pitched original ideas for the MSG Sphere
Collaborated with Software Engineers and Technical Game Designer to implement and tweak the haptic feedback feature on mobile devices in Unreal Engine
Participated in daily standups and reported my progress to the Producer
Coordinated with Game Designers and Software Engineers to set up and run internal playtests

Don't Wake Up
CMU, ETC, Intro to Game Design
Pittsburgh PA, 2022

Genre: Asymmetrical co-op, puzzle solving
Platform: Tabletop
My role: Designer, researcher, artist
Team members: Caitlyn Lenhoff, Phoebe Wang, Xiao Han

Description: Don’t Wake Up is a cooperative, puzzle solving game. Two players, playing an experienced alien(surveyor) and a young alien(operator), will work together to help the young alien pass the ultimate test of human abduction. You succeed if you could abduct a human by moving them out their window without waking them from their slumber. However, during the operation, each player has part of the information, and they must communicate with each other using a limited choice of words to get the information through.

Challenges:

Using the existing IP as an inspiration for the mechanics and the theme of the game
Capturing the feeling of silliness and unknown that is in Lifted

As a game designer, I experimented with several different mechanics to achieve the feeling of nervousness. I set up playtests to find the optimal way. I made a cheat sheet of the rules that has each step and each power-up listed for players to use.
As an artist, I crafted some tactile game pieces with cardboard.

Wild Ones
CMU, ETC, Intro to Game Design
Pittsburgh PA, 2022

Rules

Genre: Co-op; Action point
Platform: Tabletop
My role: Designer, researcher
Team members: Rohit Sharma, Xiao Han

Description: Wild Ones is a two player co-op transformational board game aimed to raise the awareness of preserving native biodiversity. The players will work together to transform a bug-infested garden full of exotic flowers to a native plant garden that's healthy and beneficial to the ecosystem. This game is inspired by the non-profit organization, Wild Ones, Western PA chapter.

Challenges:

Designing a game based on a goal of a non-profit organization
Implementing dark patterns in the game for good cause
Using transformational theory as the guide to change the players in a positive way

As a game designer, I did research on the subject and the NGO. I proposed the idea of Native Plants VS Exotic Plants. I wrote the rules of the game and iterated on it many times.

Spelun-King
CMU, ETC, Intro to Game Design
Pittsburgh PA, 2022

Rules

Download gameboard

Genre: Roll-and-write
Platform: Tabletop
My role: Designer, researcher, artist
Team member: Xiao Han

Description: Spelun-King is a single player roll-and-write game themed around caving. The goal is to connect as many entrances and exits as possible to score the maximum of points. The major mechanics were decided before the project started, and the theme, caving, is randomly chosen from the activity page on Wikipedia.

Challenges:

Designing a roll-and-write game based on an activity that was randomly chosen (caving)
Making a game that's printable with minimum items that players have to bring in (players only have to bring a pencil and two dice)

As a game designer, I designed the mechanics and the rules of the game.
As an artist, I designed and drew the game board.

Raft Away
CMU, ETC, Building Virtual Worlds
Pittsburgh PA, 2021

Genre: Story-based
Platform(s): Quest 2 VR
My role: Narrative designer, 3D artist
Tools I used: Maya, Substance Painter, Unity
Team members: Huijie Bao, Xiao Han, Tanvi Ganu, Tiange Zhou, Tongzhou Wang

Description: You are on a boat with your friend out in the ocean. Food is getting scarce, and your friend is getting sick. One day, your friend passes away, and you are starving…Raft Away is a survival game with a twist. It proposes one question to our player — if you have to eat your friend’s corpse to survive, would you do it? This short experience is created for the story round of Building Virtual Worlds. The goal of the team is to use the player's interaction with the world to drive the story.

Challenges:

Designing a short story-based experience in VR
Tackling the topic of the morality of cannibalism under harsh circumstances

As a game designer, I pitched the story to our team and designed the narrative of the game.
As an artist, I created the character model and several pieces in the environment and the respective textures. I also did some of the animation.

Sturm
CMU, ETC, Building Virtual Worlds
Pittsburgh PA, 2021

Genre: Arcade
Platform: HoloLens 2, Unity
My role: Designer, 3D artist
Tools I used: Maya, Unity
Team members: James Finkel, Jennifer Liao, Nolan O'Keefe, Xiao Han, Yifan Shan

Description: Sturm is a short, colorful, fast paced game that runs on Hololens2. The player is the god in this world. They have to put out the fire on the little elves’ home caused by the lightning and gray clouds. We used the hand tracking function of Hololens2 and developed the mechanics based around pitching and pulling the clouds.

Challenges:

Using real objects to enhance players experience in the virtual world
Creating the feeling of urgency for player to act and help the elves in the game
Indirectly guiding the players to learn the mechanics of the game

As a game designer, I designed the onboarding phase of the game. To start the game, players have to interact with a big cloud that acts as a start button. Players are asked to pinch and pull the button to start the game. During the process, players can learn the core mechanics without going through a tutorial or instruction.
As an Artist, I worked on modeling objects in the environment including the trees and the elves’ house. With the limited time we were given, I’m glad we were able to deliver something that's interesting and aesthetically pleasing.