Friend Ships

In collaboration with Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Friend Ships is an accessible interactive toy designed for children in their waiting room.

Role: Unity C# Developer, Game Design, Visual Direction, Technical Art

Team size: 5
Date: March 2018
Scope: 4 days
Prompt: create an accessible waiting room game, using Screenplay as the input system

2nd Place overall at Sheridan College 2018 Winter Sprint Week.

The Screenplay system embedded into the waiting room of Holland Bloorview. Standing on a square will trigger the input. — The Screenplay system embedded into the waiting room of *Holland Bloorview*. Standing on a square will trigger the input.

The challenge

Holland Bloorview features a waiting room equipped with Screenplay, a grid based pressure-sensitive input system. Our challenge was to design a game using Screenplay as the primary input, entertaining and accommodating children of all ages and mobility types. As a team, some aspects we decided to prioritize were:

Accessibility: wheelchair-bound children should be able to play and have fun
Non-continuity: the player can leave at any time
Toy-like: the game shouldn't heavily enforce win-states
Calming: we should try to relieve patient anxiety

Empowering the immobile

In order to create an interesting experience for the immobile, our game had different output actions depending on how long you stay on a tile. A quick step would result in a pushing wave ripple, but a stand & stay would result in a pulling whirlpool. This whirlpool would grow in strength the longer you stay still. The still player would be rewarded with a powerful whirlpool, mixing many colors at once, and guiding multiple boats to the pier at once.

Designing for children: agency through visuals

By having a very colorful and dynamic paint system, we hope to appeal to young children, curious to experiment. Color mixing and generative art are fun activities for kids uninterested in guiding boats.

During development, we realized that kids are not used to controlling the environment abstractly -- what's causing these ripples and whirlpools? The solution was to personify their actions by attaching a cute rubber duck!

The paint system

An interesting problem: when I tried to blend colours using a basic linear interpolation, the colours ended up looking wrong and muddy. Blue blended with yellow should produce green right?

After doing some research, I discovered that mathematical colour blending is different than optical colour blending! What I had to do was to only blend the hue of the paint.

Longevity

To prevent the game from becoming stale after multiple plays, we added some low-chance random events. This keeps the game interesting, and adds a layer of discovery and depth to the experience!