Astrocyte

Take control of a group of medical nano-bots seeking to cleanse the human brain of Multiple Sclerosis.

Role
Game Designer
Team Size
4
Platform
PC
Tools Used
Unreal Engine 4.4.3
Adobe Illustrator CS6
Duration
4 Months, 2014

Overview

Astrocyte is a single player, educational, medical-sci-fi game that allows the user to dive right into the human brain and its functions. As humanity expands scientifically and technologically, disease will become a thing of the past. This game explores that, perhaps not so distant, future. Created over the course of 4 months, my team and I explored a new engine and an experimental idea.

As a group of nano-bots within a human brain, the user actively controls this collection of orbs and hunts down rogue T-cells. These cells enter the brain through spawn points located on veins and begin to destroy the protective coating on the nearby neurons. The player is tasked with eradicating these T-cells, repairing the neurons and restoring brain function to normality.

Intent

Every element of gameplay was meticulously researched, conceptualized in-game, and iterated upon so that each element remained educational while fitting our sci-fi theme. Image created by Jesse M. Snyder

Every element of gameplay was meticulously researched, conceptualized in-game, and iterated upon so that each element remained educational while fitting our sci-fi theme.
Image created by Jesse M. Snyder

By using real-life medicine and science as a source for inspiration, Astrocyte strove to allow players to learn about tragic diseases and their effects through gameplay. Because the human brain operates at such a small cellular scale, its processes and the dangers it faces often go overlooked. This project was meant to provide perspective on those aspects and inspire, or rekindle, an interest in the field of medical science technology for players.

Should this project have continue beyond this vertical slice, it would include a wider variety of diseases and locations within the human body.

Collaboration

Initially, our team began prototyping in Unity 3D until we made the jump to Unreal Engine 4. Because of my unfamiliarity with the engine, my work was hands off for the first half of the project, until I became proficient enough to create levels and prototype systems. All throughout that learning process, however, I constantly worked with my artists and programmer on creating a cohesive vision through a combination of research, documentation and meetings. Visual Design Documentation is one of my strengths in that I can demonstrate my design and intentions visually in a simple and elegant fashion. In addition, once I became affluent enough, in-engine, I began prototyping and implementing my own systems.

Our project involved a lot of real science. To keep our understanding, I created these documents (shown above) and one of our artists created stunning concept work.

Our project involved a lot of real science. To keep our understanding, I created these documents (shown above) and one of our artists created stunning concept work.

Through those documents, in engine prototyping of my own, and meetings (over Skype and in person); I was able to effectively communicate my vision of the project and allow for the others to assist in creating content that matched that vision. Towards the end of the project, myself, and the rest of my team, began rapidly prototyping, iterating and implementing a wide variety of systems, designs and artistic elements.


Iterative Design

A huge component of Astrocyte was its educational value. As such, one of my roles was to do research into neurological diseases, brain functionality and experimental medical treatments as inspiration for mechanics. All In addition to being in charge of prototyping and balancing these mechanics and interactions to create a compelling game world and player character.

Note, all items are expanded below. My primary contributions were as follows:

  • Contextual research in the following fields

  • Designing & prototyping nano-bot behaviors

  • Designing & prototyping player controls

    • Movement

    • Combat

    • Mending

  • Designing enemy behaviors

    • Spawning, replicating and spreading

  • Designing & prototyping world behaviors

    • Neuron functionality

      • Axon

      • Myelin sheath

      • Synaptic firing

    • Veins

      • Enemy spawn locations

Nano Bots

Initially, we started out with a toy that was created by one of our artists. Through several iterations, we were able to nail down the basic controls for the player, our theme and our intended gameplay experience. Through the process of our team learning Unreal Engine 4 and becoming more familiar with our theme, we ended up with the physically-based free-flowing nano-bots you see to the right. Below are the iterations we went through.

Humble Beginnings
The initial toy, seen right, is incredibly simple: Boxes are being displaced as they are being impacted by a light source. While we later scrapped the light component, the slow moving and weightless nature of the cubes was incredibly compelling and struck a cord with our peers and QA testers. From here, I prototyped various weapons to interact with the cubes in different ways (including a gravity-well type projectile).

Jump to Unreal
Not long into our design process, we decided to move our game from Unity 3D to Unreal Engine 4. The outcome was a much more beautiful aesthetic. Our decision for this was based on, among other factors, the ease of the level design pipeline, including the Blueprint Scripting system; as well as our artists' familiarity with the engine.

Displacement to Manipulation
During one of work meetings, I had an epiphany: What if the player wasn't displacing the blocks, but, rather, was manipulating them directly. Based on previous work I had done on the initial toy, the gravity well, I designed a new way for the player to control the boxes. What resulted was a unique aesthetic that none of us had seen before.

Cubes to Orbs
Credit for this step falls on our programmer; the physics based nature of our collection of cubes was immense and he made the choice to switch to spheres, for the sake of performance. What resulted, however, was our ability to conceptualize a theme for this project. After much discussion, we agreed to test the waters with a microscopically scaled game. This was the beginning of our journey to develop Astrocyte.

Player Controls

 

The player has the ability to maneuver in 3D space and manipulate the nano-bots in a number of ways. Due to the physics based nature of the game and its controls, much of my time was dedicated to designing and fine tuning these systems for optimal and intuitive usage.

Pull draws in distant orbs so that they may be collected by the gather ability.
Gather coalesces the orbs into a swirling collection that can be used for various purposes.
Condense was created after testers found it difficult to control some of their more unruly nano-bots. This ability forces them towards the Gather position.
Focus allows the player to slow down the world around them, giving them more time to think and strategize approaches.

Nano-Bot Functions

In addition to moving around, these nano-bots also have abilities that aid in healing the damage the player faces.

Cleanse immediately destroys infectious agents on contact; be it the T-cells, or the inflammation they leave behind.

Mend heals the damaged myelin sheath after inflammation has been cleared. This temporarily takes control of the mending nano-bots until the process is finished, restoring normal functionality to the neuron.

These interactions closely resemble an experimental Multiple Sclerosis treatment that utilizes dormant STEM cells. When rogue T-cells, the cause of the disease, are detected nearby, the STEM cells engage them, destroy them and repair myelin sheath damage. Going down the nano-bot route was an artistic decision, but their design was very much influenced by this real procedure. You may learn more here.

Enemy Design

The inspiration for our primary antagonist is the neurological disease Multiple Sclerosis. It causes T-cells, the body's agents of the immune system, to enter the brain through a weakened vein wall. Having never visited the brain before, these invading T-cells approach and attach themselves to a neuron's mylein sheath. It doesn't recognize it, so it immediately begins to destroy it and, simultaneously, replicate.

Because they are programmed to specifically attack the mylein sheaths, they pose no threat to the player character. Instead, these free roaming enemies are designed to give the players a sort of cat and mouse chase until the infection is subsided.

World Design

As Astrocyte takes place in the human brain, much of what needed to be in place was fairly straightforward. Incorporating it in such a way that produced more compelling gameplay was another. The primary elements that I decided to include were the neurons and the veins with a style reminiscent of a scanning electron microscope.

Flying through the world, the player is exposed to the jungle of neurons and firing synapse that make up normal brain functions. In the video to the right, you can see veins, as well. Weakened points along this vein, due to Multiple Sclerosis, are what allow T-cells to enter the brain when they shouldn't be able to.

Contextual Research

Once we finalized our microscopic theme, we made the leap into biology and medicine. It was at this point that we decided to explore the possibility of creating an educational experience. Combining sci-fi with reality in a way that still conveyed the realities, however, was a daunting task. Over the course of designing the above systems, I had heavily researched the following items:

Note: Click each primary bullet to learn more about our research.