Untame Flavours

OVERVIEW

Science Centre Singapore (SCS) would like to run a third edition of #UNTAME with Sqkii. The theme for the latest edition will be centred around food. The game has two components, a digital game as well as a physical treasure hunt inside the science centre.

MY ROLE

Game Designer

THE TEAM

Kehan Tan - Game Design Lead
Leanne Tan - Deputy Game Designer

TIMELINE

Aug 2022 - Oct 2023

CAMPAIGN LENGTH

WebApp
Oct 2023

SUMMARY OF CONTRIBUTIONS

  • Helped to design and suggest improvements to game mechanics based on the data from the previous iterations of #Untame

  • Redesigned biomes with existing assets to fit the Science Centre’s current campaign of food and health (due to budget restrictions)

  • Worked with the Game Design team to design, prototype and concept 2 new challenging food-related mini-games to be added in conjunction or in replacement of the existing #Untame mini-games

  • Revamped prize redemption ー In the previous iteration, prizes were depleted too quickly. We decided and designed a staggered prize release and implemented ‘prize drops, mystery prizes’ and seasons.

  • Designed a physical treasure hunt campaign for #Untame based on #Hunt the Mouse. Where players will have to search for golden apples to exchange for prizes

Game Design

This is the Singapore Science Museum’s 3rd iteration of #Untame with Sqkii. Last year’s storyline was based on environmental clean-up and awareness about human waste and pollution. This year’s theme was centred around food ー specifically, the science of food and drinks, taste, cooking, food forensics, food manufacturing etc. After discussion with the game design team, we decided to change the storyline to (A) Rebuilding a food factory or (B) Developing a secret ingredient to make the perfect food. We wanted to retain as many of the original mechanics from the game as possible while improving gameplay and changes to enhance longevity;

Our proposed improvements to the game design were:

  • Shorter video missions/quizzes ー these were the least played missions by far based on the data. Video quizzes also lacked replayability due to having the same questions over and over. For this year’s iteration, we opted to create and add a question bank for more randomised gameplay

  • New Mini-Games ー We wanted to introduce something more mentally stimulating and challenging than previous years while being in tune with this year’s theme of food. Our inspirations started from food sorting, Candy Crush, and Wordle.

  • Improve the longevity of Prizes ー Staggered prize drops to encourage players to come back to check and continue playing for new prizes.

These are a selection of some of the game screens I designed and drew based on the mini-games we designed as a team. The screen on the left is the final version of the game. Two mini-games are:

  • Burger Sorting ー Players will receive mixed-up burgers and remove and rearrange stacks of ingredients at a time until all ingredients in each of the three burgers are in the correct order and are completed within a certain amount of moves.

  • Plate fitting ー Players receive a balanced meal that comprises each of the major food groups and have to organise them to fit their plates. Each mini-game session consists of 3 plates for each of the three meals in a day.