Overview / Usage

We welcome you to play Snapshot Isle here!

Development Information

Snapshot Isle's development was a collaborative capstone project created by eight Sheridan Honours Bachelor of Game Design students under the team name Dinky Dinos and four student collaborators. The project was conceptualized, prototyped, developed, tested and iterated throughout an eight month span from September 2020 to April 2021 during the core team's fourth year in the Honours Bachelor of Game Design program. The entirety of Snapshot Isle's development was completed remotely during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

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Team Members

Rowan Allcorn - Artist, Environment Designer, Writer

Phill Damaskin - Programmer, 3D Artist, Writer

David D’Orazio - Level Designer

Dean Elliott - UI/UX Designer

Drew Godden - Gameplay Designer, Writer

Eyan Howlader - 3D Artist

Aushton Kelusky - Programmer

Vanessa Urnos - Producer, Writer

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Collaborators

Jason Beetham - Game Launcher Developer

Thomas Cossu - Sound Designer

Abigail Neale - Sound Designer

Diane Vallesteros - Sound Designer

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Snapshot Isle Overview

Snapshot Isle is a small, open world photography game that challenges players to search for and photograph the perfect subjects for a cast of peculiar clients. Throughout their journey, the player engages with three different types of commissions/quests that put their perception skills to the test:

Multi-Solution Riddles

Multi-solution riddle commissions challenge the player to identify and photograph multiple solutions to a single riddle. For example, one riddle asks the player: "What burns without fire?" To fulfill this commission, the player can submit photos of items such as a hot cup of coffee, a spicy hot pepper, cinnamon, a glass of strong whiskey or even radioactive waste!

Symbol Searching

Symbol searching commissions challenge the player to spot recurring symbols hidden within the level design. For example, one symbol searching commission asks the player to photograph objects that make an "X" (cross) shape. To fulfill this commission, the player can submit photos of items such as a railroad crossing sign, the "X" on a treasure map, or even an "X" that a teacher marked on a failed math test!

Photo Re-Creation

Re-creation commissions challenge the player to identify different locations based on old photos and recreate them. Re-creation commissions begin with a reference photo that depicts landmarks within the level design. To fulfill this commission, the player must scout out these landmarks and study the details of the reference photo to create a near perfect match.

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Methodology / Approach

Design Challenge

The first step the Snapshot Isle team took was to define a clear design challenge that would help inform the project's purpose. It was important to the team that we offer an experience to our players that considers how everybody views the world through a different lens. We wanted to offer an alternative to visual rating systems that use a black box algorithm to validate photos. Instead, we aimed to challenge each player's perception skills, simulating how a photographer might search for subjects that align with a specific vision in mind to display in a gallery. In consideration of these key points, the Snapshot Isle team decided on a design challenge statement:

"In consideration that photography is evaluated subjectively, how might we gamify photography?"

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​ Game Pillars

In keeping with industry standard practices, the Snapshot Isle team established game pillars that would inform design decisions during ongoing development. The three pillars of Snapshot Isle were as follows:

Photography

As Snapshot Isle's core game mechanic, the player's photography experience was at the forefront of every design decision. It was key that the experience of taking and viewing pictures in Snapshot Isle was intuitive and engaging. To satisfy this pillar, the Snapshot Isle team regularly conducted play tests with players of varying degrees of game literacy. Each play test had a specific objective such as evaluating the photography mechanic's controls, or the ease of use of the album user interface. After many iterations, subsequent tests demonstrated that virtually any player, regardless of their familiarity with games, could engage with and enjoy Snapshot Isle's photography mechanic.

Perceptiveness

The perceptiveness pillar was at the center of Snapshot's Isle's quest/commission design and answering the team's design challenge. It was important to the team that there be challenges for players to overcome that go beyond scavenger hunting. The team was especially invested in facilitating those all-important "Aha!" moments that the player experiences when they discover that a subject satisfies a commission prompt. As a result, the Snapshot Isle team developed the three different types of commissions described in Snapshot Isle Overview.

Exploration

Given the player would be exploring a modestly sized open world due to the team's limited resources, we focused on how we might creatively bolster the player's exploration experience. In Snapshot Isle, fireworks lay inconspicuously behind a decrepit shed, items are hidden in barrels, music records lay precariously on cliffs and more! Laying down bread crumbs to guide the player to exciting discoveries was an important part of making Snapshot Isle a place that players want to keep returning to.

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Level Design

The level design process for Snapshot Isle can be broken down into four steps:

1. Greybox
2. Test
3. Iterate
4. Polish

When starting the construction of an island, we would create a rough greybox that each team member would test and provide feedback on. Once we had finished testing we would iterate on each island until we were satisfied with three key elements: Ease of traversal, photo opportunities, and potential for discoveries. Once we felt these elements were fulfilled, we would populate the environment with props and iterate on feedback from volunteer testers.

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Other Focus Points

Everyone Views the World through a Different Lens
A significant part of the challenge of making a game that involves riddles and image recognition is that not everybody perceives the world the same way. To account for this, Snapshot Isle offers a variety of possible solutions to each riddle and symbol searching commission. Of these options, the player is asked to find only a limited number of them. For example, the multi-solution riddle "What burns without fire?" has eight possible solutions that exist in the game world, but the player is asked to find only three of them. Additionally, most solutions have multiple instances so that the player doesn't have to trek long distances to come across the answer they're looking for.

Wide Margins of Error

One of the Snapshot Isle team's chief concerns was that photo recognition felt fair and reliable. As part of this effort, we calculate the percentage of object visibility within a photo using spherical nodes that are assigned to the perimeter and interior of each object. If 50% or more of a subject's nodes are visible within the bounds of a photo, it's recognized when the photo is evaluated. After conducting several play tests, the threshold of 50% was determined to feel fair and reliable to all testers.

Movement & Respecting the Player’s Time

A key focus point during Snapshot Isle's development was to ensure that the player would never be far from a solution object. As part of this effort, the team implemented sprinting and zip lines that help reduce the travel time between points of interest. In adding these features to Snapshot Isle, the team made a concentrated effort to respect players' time. We think zip lines are just really cool too!

Rewards & the Item Shop

An important consideration of executing Snapshot Isle's game loop was how to reward players for completing a commission. The team experimented with fixed item rewards, but settled on the idea that offering the player a choice of reward from an island shop would be more engaging. To carry out this design, the team developed a simple economy that accounts for funds received from commissions (faucets) and purchasable item prices (sinks).

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Technologies Used

Development Tools

• Blender
• Clip Studio Paint
• FMOD
• Github
• Photoshop
• Substance Painter
• Unity
• Visual Studio 2019

Communication & Internal Documentation Tools

• Confluence
• Discord
• Figma
• Google Suite
• Miro

Unity Plugins / Packages

• Atmospheric Height Fog | Optimized Fog for Consoles, Mobile and VR
• Flat Kit: Toon Shading and Water
• Lowpoly Style
• Polygon Nature
• Stylized Water

Other links

• Play Snapshot Isle!