Tablet Team Project
Field work is an interactive tablet game that teaches about the workflow of a paleontologist and how homologous structures from extant species can be used to reconstruct fossils. In this experience, players learn about fossil discovery through fossil reconstruction.
We created a wireframe and the overall structure of the game by collaborating through video meetings and shared online platforms. We chose a style and color palette that was suitable for a younger audience and matched the Field Museum’s branding.
The Team
Nicole Hampshire: Learning goal design, Asset development
Mikaela Muersch: Programming
Ben Colvin: UI/UX, Asset development
Programs: Unity Game Engine, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Play our game! (version not suitable for mobile devices)
I was in charge of the programming for the game. I started by determining which scenes might be challenging to program and experimented with possible solutions using placeholder objects. While the assets were being created, I continued to build out the game using placeholders that could be replaced at the end. My teammates passed off assets for me to import into the scene. After placing these elements into Unity, I communicated with my teammates on any changes for the assets I thought might be helpful. This included color redesign of certain UI elements in order for them to stand out in the game experience. We were in frequent communication and utilized shared online platforms to work smoothly in making these adjustments.
I also did the animations of assets and UI elements. I added the sound effects our team decided upon into scenes, but after working in Unity, I noticed some areas that could use more. I chose some additional sounds to implement and ran them by my team to confirm.
A challenge we faced was the possible confusion of the bones positioning over the diagram. I thought highlighting these spots might be helpful when a bone is in place, so we decided to add this in as well. I created these highlighted sections for each of the diagrams using Adobe Illustrator.
Our team collaborated to create a project timeline with key deadlines in order to stay on track. This allowed us to stay informed on teammates’ duties and ensure task responsibility was equally distributed. We held weekly meetings for progress check-ins and reassessed plans as needed.
When the game was complete, we did play testing to find any bugs we may have missed or any minor changes we thought might be necessary.
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