Otter Agent: Truth or Lie
Team Beyond Beyond Touch is a interdisciplinary team of programmers and designers. Supported by Dr. Gierad Laput, as an interdisciplinary team, we designed social gameplay experiences that augmented by physical data.
Otter Agent: Truth or Lie is the first-ever social game on Apple Watch developed by the team, incorporating heart rate into a bluffing game. The game is now available on the App Store. For more info, please check out our website, slide deck, or play!
Sponsor
Dr. Gierad Laput
from Apple
Timeline
Jan - Oct, 2024
Tools Used
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate
Team
Yiwei Li, Haoda Zhao,
Shih-hung Liu, Lingheng Tao, Jiamo Zhang, Chuanzhen Tu
⬆Take a look for our 1 minute intro about this first-ever social game on Apple Watch⬆
OVERVIEW
Project Brief
Beyond Beyond Touch is an academic project that reimagines the Apple Watch’s capabilities and constraints as assist to social game experience at Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center(ETC) . Believing that portable gaming can extend beyond the touch screen, our goal is to enhance social interactions between players by introducing physical data as part of gameplay.
Coordinated with Apple AIML Engineering Manager Gierad Laput, by leveraging unique features like real-time body data collection, we explore the wearable IoT(Apple Watch) potential for creating engaging social gaming experiences.
My Role
Pre-production research
Understand on the platform its users and our design field (social games), analyze results, and define the scope.
UX Design & solutioning in team
Partner with dev team and designers, initiating gameplay and design interactions tailored to the game and platform.
Visual Design
Design the game theming, UI elements and in-game interface for engaging experiences and robust productization.
Project Development Production
Keep track on team progress weekly as blog, defining milestones and success metrics to support project management.
Design Process
Initial Thinking
☛ Client’s Need
Social 🥳 Game experience 👾 Apple Watch ⌚
A social game experiences utilize Apple Watch specialties
☛ Target Users
Anyone with an Apple Watch, friends or ready to socialize
Demographics: k12 to adults
☛ Business Problem
Less than 200 games on Apple Watch and 0 social game.
There is a mis-opportunity of Apple watch game, and an empty market for its social game.
☛ Opportunity
Capture this empty market by leveraging its unique features, designing an exclusive social gaming experience that properly utilize Apple Watch.
How Might We Questions
01
How might we integrate the Apple Watch into an immersive experience that feels natural, rather than awkwardly adapting a screen-based game?
02
How might we design in-game feedback to proceed gameplay within the constraints of a small screen, informing players the rules?
03
How might we utilized Apple Watch’s specialties to add on to the game?
Background Research
Knowing Existing System
☛ Q: What is a GOOD Social Game? A: Physical interaction is the key.
Make people TALK a lot
eg: Mafia, Among Us, Truth or Dare
Make people MOVE around
eg: Hide and Seek, Ghost in the Graveyard, Treasure Hunt
☛ Q: What are Apple Watch’s Specialities? A: Realtime data collection + immediate feedback
Research Method:
In-person interview
Research online
Research Goal: Identify key functions that Apple Watch perform significantly better on the Watch than on a phone.
Beyond 4 technology, we also conclude two key characteristics: portability and haptic feedback. These work together to create an immediate feedback system that notifies users effortlessly, without requiring additional actions.
Frame Gameplay
1 - Theming for game storytelling
☛ Smart Watch → Body Status monitoring
→ Spy Agent training, tackling secret missions
Players take on the role of an otter agent tasked with infiltrating the groundhog family, but at the same time groundhog family’s smartwatch will keep track of each member’s body status, if you’re suspicious, you are out.
2 - StoryBoard + Gameplay Testing
We designed 4 game prototypes, incorporating different hardware features of the watch:
Realtime Heart Rate + Truth or Lie?
“A ‘must’ to be an agent” (competitive game)Heart Rate change + Exercise
“Agent Fitness Training” (competitive game)Decibel Detection + Running/Chasing game
“Bomb Groundhog”Accelerometer + Balance game
“Handling emergency” (collaborative game)
Design Decision
Game Design Choice: Truth or Lie
A bluffing game with each player’s heartrate revealed on the secret watch, answer questions based on given prompts, guess whether the stories told by others are truth or lies, and hide your identity.
Imagine bluffing in the face, but your heartrate betrays you; or you secretly shake your leg while telling a truth to increase your heartrate, and make them believe you are telling a lie!
Prototyping and Testing
Room Setup & Naming → Assign Identity → Pick Prompt → Story Time → Interrogate Time
Based on the game design, we created the initial wireframe. Keeping the core game mechanics and heart rate functionality, we used a paper Apple Watch to build a prototype for audience playtesting.
⬇Iteration Decisions based on real feedbacks from players
When designing the high-fidelity prototype, we implemented it on a watch, invited more people for playtesting, and refined it through iterative feedback:
Unclear Tutorial: The current tutorial is unclear; the illustrations need adjustments to explain the core gameplay while telling the story. It also requires frequent tapping to proceed. We plan to add autoplay voiceovers to make it easier to follow.
Prompt Choosing: The selected prompt display for non-host players was unclear, causing confusion and making some think their watch was stuck. We plan to improve the wording of instructions for direct non host to discussions with the host.
Result Reveal: Condensing voting results into a single number wasn’t helpful for players wanting detailed feedback. We aim to make this clearer by showing each player’s identity and votes toward them one-by-one.
Frame Solutions
Visual Identity
To fit our otter agent and groundhog family, we created otter icons and defined a color palette for different players. For each player choice, there is an otter with some identifiable characteristic in a different bright color, making each player’s otter recognizable and unique. Also, we pick rounded san serif typeface to fit in the chill and playful setting.
Collaborating Two Platforms
Phone App: Pre-game setup, introduces the game and engages players with the theme through a “warm-up session.”
Apple Watch: In-game device, not only revealing heart rate but also providing immersive interaction through audio and haptic feedback.
Together, tailors the game experience to platform features and user habits to ensure accessibility.
Realize Offerings
📱Truth or Lie Phone App
Get ready for the game!
01 Guided Rules
Before entering the actual gameplay (which takes place on the watch), this companion phone app provides rule guidance to help players understand how to play.
02 Freedom of Customizations
Players can customize their avatar by selecting a cover identity and code name before beginning their training. This personalization making it more immersive and tailored to each player.
⌚️Truth or Lie Watch App: Immersive Agent experience
01 Engage Through Secret Watch
Before the mission begins, the room setup immerses players in the experience of scrolling the digital crown to synchronize their secret watches. The host receives a mission code, and other agents scroll to enter the same code on their watches to join the room.
The waiting room will be filled by the joined otter avatar.
02 Proceed Game with Clear Guidances
Phase 1: Assign Identity
At the start, each agent is assigned an identity as either a truth-teller or a liar.
Solution: The simple tap-to-reveal interaction effectively reduces 80% of instances where players accidentally read their identities aloud during the game stage.
Phase 2: Pick a Prompt
By confirming their identities, the party select a prompt to answer.
Solution: Guests will see an instruction to choose a prompt along with the host, so they know they can discuss and select the prompt together, fostering more collaboration and interaction.
03 Introduce sound and haptics, and live voting
Phase 3: Story time
Prepare their stories based on the prompt and then share them one by one, while others can view the speaker’s heart rate. We found that Players often become so engaged in the stories that they tend to overlook the heart rate.
Solution: When the speaker's heart rate spikes dramatically, their watch delivers a haptic alert with a notification sound.
We found that haptic feedback is an effective way to capture attention. Therefore, we added light haptics during game stage transitions and stronger haptics + sounds for key moments, such as when the speaker's heart rate spikes or when it’s your turn.
Phase 4: Question time
After everyone has shared their story, it's time for the question round, or as we like to call it, the interrogation! Each agent need to answers questions from others about their story, with their heart rate monitored by the secret watch.
Solution: To add tension during this phase, the live voting system - allows audiences to make back-and-forth voting decisions while listening and constantly check the speaker's heart rate.
04 Building Suspense and Capturing the Ending Moment
Phase 5: Revealing
Finally, rankings will be revealed, and agents can check who they deceived and who they got during the training.
Solution: The ending moment when players reveal their identities together to help them make sense of their scores. Revealing one by one about each’s identity and who guess right.
We later found that this moment was highly enjoyable for players, as they were eager to discover each other's identities and see if they guessed correctly or managed to deceive others, and this moment also makes the final rankings more understandable and satisfying for everyone.
Last, To enhance the game’s enjoyment and personalization, we incorporated otter-themed design elements with color variations in the interface. Each player’s watch screen is color-coded to match their assigned otter agent, adding a playful and distinctive touch.
While embracing the otter theme, we prioritized visual clarity by using bold icons, simplified shapes, and strong contrasts to ensure readability and an intuitive experience.
Outcome
Post Launch, real downloads, Serious Play conference
Success Metrics: 2.56k impressions, 142 downloads, 447 sessions, Players enjoyed and laughed during the game
Available on the App Store, ready for download and play, and we are continuously inviting people to test our game.
We are fixing reported bugs and making further design iterations based on feedback.
We are also developing our second social game!
Takeaways
Throughout the development of Otter Agent: Truth or Lie, we’ve woven our otter-themed story into the experience and carefully considered how players will engage with our game.
It is my first time led the design of a 0-to-1 product for the first time, designing and maintaining the project over the long term. I learned the importance of organized documentation—including a design system, design documents, and developer blogs—which provided a foundation for reflecting on the process, identifying successes, and improving as needed.
Try to have clear timeline, but all the time, things come up, plans can switch. Change is the status quo. We must be agile and respond to the situation quickly.
Cross Functional: Not only internal (work with dev team), but also co-design with users. I learned how to communicate effectively and align ideas with different roles of people.
Solutions should be accessible: Rapid user testing through interviews, playtesting, conferences, and online feedback was key to gathering insights and iterating on the experience, knowing whether this changes are effective. This iterative process is the key to a positive experience.
