MARTIAN
ROLE
Designer and Developer
DESCRIPTION
mARtian is an AR game made during CS 4240 at the National University of Singapore and subsequently presented at the NUS STEPS conference to an audience of over 300. The player is an astronaut, gearing up for their first space mission, and playing minigames which teach them about our solar system. It was designed with educational and museum settings in mind. I worked on the research, level design, audio design, visual design, and gameplay programming.
YEAR
2024
GENRE
Educational AR game
PLATFORM
iPhone
DESIGN
MINIGAME 1 (PLANETARY EXPLORATION)
Intro screens for the first minigame, explaining the controls and premise to the player. It is designed to look like a mission briefing for the player who is an astronaut in training. In game, the text types out and is accompanied by an uptempo soundtrack.
Planets yet to be discovered. Progress bar at the bottom is empty.
Shows Venus having been discovered. Progress bar has ticked up.
Shows two planets discovered with filter mode on (shown in UI by the filled in stars)
Main gameplay screens for the first minigame. They show a model of the solar system with planets sized to scale and orbiting at accurate speeds relative to the other planets. Players must turn around and look for planets around them while they orbit. They then must tap on each planet to "discover" it and add it's information to their logbook. A filter mode was added to take out the AR functionality and give it a fully space themed background, to be used when the player's real world environment is too cluttered.
Logbook UI for the first minigame. It contains all the information the player has collected from discovering planets. The same information is read aloud by their robotic assistant when they initially discover each planet.
MINIGAME 2 (SPACESUIT ASSEMBLY)
Successful end screen for first minigame, which sets up the second minigame
Venus has been selected, as can be seen with the less transparent image
Informs player of continuity of logbook from previous minigame
Intro screens for the second minigame, which keeps consistent styling. Depending on the planet the player chooses during this intro phase, the spacesuit they have to construct in the next game section changes.
Shows mannequin with no suit parts dragged on yet
All suit parts dragged onto mannequin, description of last clicked visor can be seen
Gameplay screens for the second minigame. The top UI shows the planet the player selected to travel to and build a suit for. When the player clicks a suit part, a description of it will appear at the bottom of the screen. The player must remember facts about the planet they are traveling to or consult their logbook to correctly assemble their spacesuit and win!
RESEARCH
Poster from NUS STEPS
FINDINGS
Our most important findings from playtests and user studies were the following:
mARtian clearly and effectively increased player knowledge regarding the solar system
mARtian is equally effective on players with a prior interest in space and players without
Players would like to see an AR game like mARtian implemented in museum settings
Players were overall satisfied with mARtian's gameplay and intuitiveness