Cyber Query
Cyber Query is a game project I worked on with a team of 4 other team members during a 4-week design sprint with the theme of “Chaos.” Cyber Query intends to combine cozy game and teamwork elements into a fun and chaotic board game set in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Currently, the game has a developed analog prototype, with plans to further develop the game into a more finished product in the coming year. The general premise of the game is that teams of two players represent one individual in the city with one team member representing the virtual self and the other team member representing the physical self. Teams must work together to collect materials scattered across both the virtual world and the real world (represented by two boards) to successfully hack their chip, a device that the government has implanted in them that prevents them from fully expressing themselves. The primary mechanic is that the players can switch between their two worlds by utilizing special areas scattered across the board that allow them to switch worlds and access areas they could not access without switching. This game aims to encourage strategic use of these teleporter areas as well as resource collection to hack your chip before the other team does!
My Process
For this project, I served as a game and level designer. I also assisted with organizational needs like setting and keeping meetings on track. For the brainstorming phase, we started with listing off attributes of cozy games and our associations with the theme “Chaos.” The words that stuck out to me were “resource gathering” and “teamwork.” From there, I devised an initial idea of having a game with two boards where one board is considered the virtual world and the other board is the real world to lend to our futuristic theme. From there we explored ways the hypothetical virtual self and real self could interact. This is where I came up with the core mechanic behind the team-based gameplay which was working with your team member to “jump” between the two board worlds. With this initial mechanic, we worked as a team to iron out the details and eventually settled on a system of symbols that would correspond with the portals. After that, I developed a system of walls to incentivize the use of the mechanic and created resources needed to win the game placed strategically across the board to give incentive for the strategic use of this core teamwork mechanic. Following this, the team did many playtests and I created multiple prototypes of our game board, balancing and revising the placement of walls and spaces as we noted down new things.
Final Board Prototypes (Left) vs Initial Board Prototypes (Right)
Deliverables
The primary deliverables for this project include a presentation of our process and concept, a multi-page PDF documenting the instructions for our game, two finalized prototypes of board designs, and prototype cards and materials. See the buttons for links to our instructions as well as a presentation of the game! Scroll further down for more on the development process!
Process Images
Initial brainstorming phase, we utilized sticky notes and wrote down basic ideas we had for the game ranging from mechanics, concepts, themes etc. We then stuck on additional sticky notes that expanded or developed on these basic sticky notes and determined which ideas we wanted to go with for our prototype.
First prototype is being developed. In this stage multiple playtests were done to narrow down the mechanics we wanted to keep. This picture captures the early conception of of our teleportation mechanic that made it to the final prototype!
Refining initial prototype. After playtesting the initial prototype we applied the feedback we garnered from the playtesters to develop an updated prototype, I took charge of revising the team mechanics as well as updating the boards to better balance them.
I along with two other team members pitched our game and prototype at the showcase for the design track. I oversaw the playtests during this showcase as well as presented our game development process and mechanics we designed for the game.