“Caligo” for Taddug Media Spring 2022, Fall 2024
Product Owner, Lead Designer, Production Manager & Technical Director

• Showcased at PAX East 2022 (~75k attendees)
• Game Studio title developed in conjunction with my research on non-verbal communication between strangers
• Design of simplified symbol codex for effectively conveying visually complex images to unknown partner
• Network programmer for two player online game in Unity engine using Photon SDK
• Designed and developed interaction and balance phases critical to pre-production

As I have explored in the past, I am particularly interested in multiplayer (two player+) cooperative games and while I do plan to explore local play, I find it fascinating to consider the challenges of strangers interacting and communicating. In this case, my love of the visual and interest in symbolism as well as cultural intricacies of not just spoken language but communication in general, has led me to investigate communication for a very specific task via a symbol lexicon. Additionally, I want to harness the power of the players contributing to the research and affecting the outcome for their own experience.

Let me explain the basic game context: You are playing with someone at a distance, and you have a shared motivation to help each other succeed at your task. You must communicate a specific item to select from a series of similar items, but that item is not an object but rather an image (a painting in the context of this game). You can only use a set number N of symbols to communicate your desired item — you can see the item, and you have some number (greater than N) of possible symbols to choose from. Now the game itself will be a testing ground, if you will, for determining what number of symbols to convey is most effective versus confusing, and what number of symbols in total are useful to pull-from pool. My hypothesis is that replay and even just play of multiple levels during one game will mean that a limited number of symbols might be easier to convey/decipher/gather the meaning for, in relation to your given partner.

I was able to do some pre-production work to identify useful symbols that had some shared interpretations — but I was only able to work with volunteers living in the USA, predominately on the East Coast and 18+. I have not calculated the statistical value of this yet, as in reality, the game production requires addressing a number of challenges that are truly separate from the selection of symbols — though this clearly will affect engagement and fun factor as well as effective reach/deployment. Fortunately, I believe in the joy of unplanned, sand-box absurdity!

I loved designing and developing this title and I particularly loved how interested and excited the students in Studio were. Also, their artwork for the items (aka valuable paintings in a mansion) is really wonderful and allowed for everyone to contribute and participate in this role if they wanted, even if they more commonly spend their time programming or doing audio for example. I love an exploratory, learning experience!

Would I continue to play this game (my litmus test for success) — oh my goodness yes, and I do!!
I plan, and look forward to continuing work on this after fulfilling my grant responsibilities in two years.

Here’s a teaser intended just for other Studio teams, but a good storyboard for the trailer.