A single player adventure game which can also be used as a cognitive assessment tool developed using Unity3D.

Treasure of Bell Island is playable on an Android tablet, iPad, Windows 7 PC and OS X computer. The player can play in home / clinic / school – anywhere they can take a device and have an Internet connection.

OVERVIEW

Game play was designed to be entertaining and engaging by Blue Marble’s in-house research clinicians, education specialists, and production team. Treasure of Bell Island is a Treasure Hunting Island Survival Adventure Game. In this role playing game, the player must manage four characters energy, location and rest while searching for the missing Prof. Swan. Each character has a unique skill-set that is used at various times during game play. Deciding when to play the characters is the key to surviving long enough to discover the treasure on Bell Island. Doing so efficiently, lowers the player’s score while challenging their attention, memory and executive function skills .

ROLES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

META GAME PROGRAMMING

The story of Treasure of Bell Island takes players on an adventure across three islands. Since mini-games are spread throughout the map, the campaign is referred to as the Meta Game. In order to make it through the game, players must manage their resources and discover mini-games and collectibles.

As the Meta Game programmer, I implemented a system by which the game progresses through a series of missions. Since the game is designed as an assessment, I also developed a robust system for tracking all player activity and efficiently sending that data to servers so that clinicians can analyse it.

The other half of the Meta gameplay is the Map system. I coded a map system which allows for players to drag characters around to different locations using a touch screen. Since a move on the map counts as both an action resource and costs character energy, I made it so the total cost can be previewed before the player initiates the move.

In order for designers to be able to create maps as they see fit, I created tools for generating map locations and setting locations, activities, and collectibles. I also made it easy for designers to set/change how locations are connected through the game editor without having to run the game.

MENU AND FEATURE PROGRAMMING

As part of the Meta Game programming, I created all of the UI elements to show the player the current state of the game. These include meta stats, character stats, and the action menu. I also worked on other essential menus like the login screen and settings menu. In creating these menus, I worked closely with an artist to make sure that all of the art assets could easily be updated without having to touch any code.

For the games campaign I created several features that could be used for the game’s tutorials, such as a generalized UI highlight and tool-tip pop-up. Since the early missions require learning to switch between characters for different actions, I also created a conversational redirect system, so that whoever the currently selected character is, they will say a unique message describing who the player should use to accomplish the current mission.