“ The game is set in the year 2072, a cyberpunk-inspired dystopian future where most of human life happens beneath the shadow of the Corporation, a conglomerate whose monopoly infects not only goods and services but also politics and social norms. People live in a constant exchange of useless information with their intra-brain link to the internet. Passive and hopeless, people die and disappear by the second, but with all the connections and exchange of information, nothing is ever truly gone. ” 

The player is known as a “Cleaner,” someone who is paid by the Corporation to go around the city deleting any “ECHO” that may make the Corporation look bad. ECHOs are a side effect of the new intra-link net system, which shows a warning or a last gasp of the one whose ECHO it is. During gameplay, the player is given a set of choices to deal with the echo; those choices will affect the player in their job and home life. In the end, the player will never be able to succeed, as one person cannot change the world they are living in (you can probably argue that a single person can, but not in our game). Of course, the player doesn't know that while they are playing.

(Our Map)

During playtests of our game, it was interesting how the players traversed our game landscape. Some play-testers would get the map and take a minute or so to decide on where would be the best route to encounter all the echos during our limited play time, while some playtesters would frantically search around trying to find the nearest echo without a plan, and then being unable to finish the game due to time.

Some players had trouble finding a specific echo we had placed on our map. That echo, in particular, had a different elevation than the other echoes had in our game, meaning that this echo required you to go down a flight of stairs and down a particular hallway rather than being readily available in the open. Some spots were also more remote than others, requiring more effort from the player to go up hills, through long grass, etc. Although most players were able to find the locations after a bit of searching (and help from us), the players will eventually play this game without help from us, so we would need to modify the ECHO locations and the map to be able to be found by anyone that plays the game.

(Playtesters at Stage behind Media Theater)

The timing was also a significant factor to consider when refining the game in playtime and our mechanics. The amount of variability in how one moves affects how we have to balance the game. Our game has a timer that always counts down, because of this players feel a sense of urgency when traversing from echo to echo. However, it may be a more significant challenge than intended if a person is limited by their possible lack of mobility. Even though most of our playtesters were capable, we had to consider that situation.

There also needed to be more connection between the characters in our game. Without this connection to the characters, the reason for playing differed from what was intended. Instead of being something you do for the greater good, it was more “chance” and no real risk within a player's choices. Hopefully, this will be fleshed out by the due date.

Regarding the Group Contributions, there was a pretty even separation of responsibilities when it comes to the creation/narrative of the game. Our group had spots within the game's creation that we liked the most, so we took more of a lead in those directions. However, the jobs were never separated into “This person does this; whatever you say doesn't matter.” There was always communication being held.

We were a team of 3. I produced the assets (map, notes, echolocation markers) as well as implemented the use of AR of the Unity Engine. We had other do the art for the game and the other as the "lore master".