Folk’s Wagon
3 months | May-Jul 2018
Folks’ Wagon (FW) is a single-player 3rd person survival/infinite run with interactive environment. Players have to race against the police and survive the highway, by taking advantage of the surrounding; each car and in-game objects is designed to be unique and interactive, not only with the player but also with everything else on the highway. Doing well rewards the player with more gold than can be used to purchase upgrades, and ultimately obtain higher score.
Role: UX Research | UI Assets Designer
Tools: Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, Unity
Design Methods: Game Design Process, User Interviews, Competitive Analysis, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Design Pitch
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Design Process
Existing Product Analysis
Temple Run
Temple Run is an endless running score based victory game. Player collect coins in each run to purchase new characters and power ups. The enemy is shown on at the bottom of the screen, and becomes more distinct when closer. This causes the player to feel anxious, motivating the player to run.
Insight: The collection of the in-game credits like coins is important in motivating the player to purchase power-ups that will help the player survive longer in the next game. Moreover, urgency is a fun motivator when visualised well.
The Heist
In The Heist, player plays as a crime lord that robs target establishment and escape with the loot on a car chase with the police. Player needs to reach the end point to escape without dying. Along the way player can ram, shoot, or use abilities on pursuing police car to destroy them. Destroying them refreshes the adrenaline bar which is used to activate skills.
Insight: The mechanic of active skills is important to empower the player to have more control with what they can do to win. Replenishing adrenaline also gives incentive to have more fun action blowing stuff up.
Highway Pursuit
In Highway Pursuit, player controls an agent car speeding through the highway. The objective is to survive as long as possible against mafia cars which tries to take down the player. Along the way, player may encounter support trucks that grant temporary skills.
Insight: There are soft boundary which refers to the grass patch beside the road; player takes continuous damage when they drive on it which incentivise them to stay on the road. Hard boundaries are the edge of the grass where cars cannot cross. This is a cleaner way to implement boundaries in an action game.
Conceptualisation
Objective
The objective of the game is to obtain the highest score from surviving against the police. Player can interact with the environment to defeat the police and equip the car with abilities to outrun them. Player can collect in-game currency to upgrade the car.
Selling Points of Folk’s Wagon
Unique Characters and Skill
Player chooses one car from a selection vehicles to play each run. Player starts with the first car and unlocks more as he progresses. Each vehicle has a set of unique skills which the player can select two for the next run.
Environment Interaction
Player can interact with almost all in-game objects to turn it into player’s favour. The game is designed to encourage player to explore the objects encountered in game and learn how to best manipulate them to one’s advantage.
Mini Games
Player can also engage in minigames. Winning in the minigame rewards the player with additional resources or power-ups to give player a boost in the current run.
Snapshots
