Breakdown:
Project Story:
The creation of Brain Type is a unique story. Put simply, Brain Type is the product of Social Theory meeting Game Design.
The idea for the game came around when I was thinking about ways to impact community through games. Rather then making a tool / application that builds community around gaming, I asked myself what a game would look like built from the ground up with social theories in mind. Once a team was gathered we asked:
How might we...
Help strengthen physical community?
Nudge people too see each other again?
and from there, Brain Type was born!
About Brain Type
Brain Type was designed to be a co-located game akin to arcade machines of old! Where might you think of putting Brain Type?
At its core Brain Type is a typing game smashed together with community improv, all within an overarching goal to reach the end of a journey together! As players find themselves at a co-located machine they will take part in either creative freestyle typing or speed typing. Within each gameplay loop players are given ways to leave their mark on the game with titles and comments.
Players control different Neurons' who are navigating their way around the brain to help form and maintain thoughts! The best part? These thoughts are created by the players! Navigate thorugh the different emotional areas of sadness, anger, fear and joy to create a collection of amazing stories with those around you!
At a party, by the water cooler (are those still around?), pretty much any group or community driven space: smash down Brain Type on whatever setup you can find (all you need is a keyboard!) and have some social fun!
Contributions:
Acted as Project Owner, gathering a team of designers and researchers together & leading them through their first game production process. Secured funding and ensured all aspects of the game came together.
Game Design Lead where I iterated from paper prototypes to a fully implemented game design. Kept in mind player engagement and multiplayer interactions along the way.
Implemented the game from scratch as the teams sole Software Engineer. With the Godot game engine I engineered a clean and expandable code base that allowed for design iteration and robust gameplay elements.
Supported the User Experience Research team as the main playtest stakeholder, where I would carefully take into account player feedback and apply it to all aspects of the game.
Led a marketing & release plan for the game: creating a unique trailer as well as creating an engaging itch.io page.
Links:
Iteration & Prototyping
A full game production lifecycle
Too figure out the gameplay design sketching played an important role!
But what really pushed the game forwards was finding the collaboration between research and game design:
In particular we landed on the idea of social translucence
Prototype 1
Our initial prototype was a cooperative adventure game. The initial concept had players using a unique control scheme to explore a world together. A community that the arcade game resided in would have to use async communication to progress.
Through internal playtesting and 3 user playtests we attempted to validate our initial concept…
Development (Software Engineering)
Playtesting II
Release (Product Management / Marketing)
Brain Type is the winner of a UC Berkeley School of Information Dr. James R. Chen Award! This award recognizes projects that foster innovation, creative solutions, and pragmatic applications in information management and information systems.
The team is proud and honored to be the first video game project to win a Chen Award!
Click here to learn more!
