student project
Celestial Harmony
Designer
AUG 2017 - DEC 2017 • Studio Synth
Unity
Desktop
Educational
Music
Celestial Harmony is an educational game that teaches piano using a MIDI keyboard as its controller. You play as Do-Rae-Mi, an elemental creature restoring life to dying planets through music. Your left hand strikes chords to choose an element; your right hand plays a melody to cast the spell. Play the right combination for a biome and it comes back to life. Learning to play the game is learning to play piano. It was built as a student research project at the University of Central Florida and won Best Use of a Game Mechanic at the 2018 Indienomicon Indieversary Awards.
MY ROLE
I was a Designer on a 10 person student team, focused on core mechanic design, level and biome construction, documentation, and playtesting.
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Designed and balanced the core teaching mechanic, tuning the MIDI-piano input so playing the game builds real piano fundamentals
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Sculpted, textured, and dressed 4 planet biomes, designed to be identifiable at a glance so players could infer the correct spell
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Wrote and maintained the project's design documentation
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Ran weekly playtest sessions and folded player feedback into the design
Awards
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Best use of a game mechanic · Indienomicon Indieversary Awards 2018
LINKS
