Design Statement

Game Overview

Whale Songs is a 2D voice-control adventure game that draws inspiration from the humpback whale songs. Players are invited to travel through different fantasy worlds with a whale friend, changing volume and pitch to light up scenes, reveal hidden architectures, learn to sing whale songs to find the lost whale and collect notes to compose a melody key to rescue.

Intention

This game tries to build connection between humans and whales through music, offering an engaging and interactive approach for the player to learn about the melody of humpback whales and rethink inter-species communication.

 Personal Contribution

• Organized and visualized game flow in design documents

• Improved game mechanics and enriched the narrative, which are presented with flowcharts and storyboards 

• Created concept art and illustrations for game assets and environmental backdrops

• Stylized rendered animations of the 3D characters in Blender and created 2D skeleton animations in Unity

• Collaborated with a programmer to design and iterate on new levels

What I have learned from this project

• Through iterative level design from sketch to white box testing, I gained a deeper understanding of integrating level design with the game’s narrative and mechanics. After several play tests, I also learned to adjust the difficulty curve based on feedback, creating a gaming experience that strikes a balance between challenge and simpleness.

• In group work, visualizing ideas (instead of writing them down) in game design documents improved the efficiency of our collaboration. For example, the storyboards and flowcharts of level design played a big role in the discussion between artists and programmer, ensuring everyone in the team understands the latest mechanics.  

• During the development, I attempted to use environmental storytelling to reduce reliance on text and UI components, encouraging players to discover mechanics without many hints. However, some players reported feeling of confusion during gameplay. I am still learning how to balance UI prompts and the joy of self-exploration.