My Time With MindsNHands Pte Ltd
I started my journey with MindsNHands Pte Ltd in July 2014. I was still quite fresh out of school and they were looking to build a transformable toy that needed some sort of video game content.
We were under the accelerator called The Co-Foundry and i was offered a side job to help other startups with various design stuff like web design, app design etc, in exchange for more salary before the project I was working on, the transforming toy, NinjaFuze took off.
I soon realized that the NinjaFuze was too bulky and dangerous for child to swing around and voiced out that we need to make it smaller. Since it is smaller and is using bluetooth connection. I also voiced out that it would be a perfect controller with the potential of entering the VR market. Hence the re-marketing and re-branding began and NinjaFuze is now called WIZ.
Game Design
During my time working on WIZ I designed and developed a few games and content for the controller. The major one I did was the Bolt Project.
Designing games for a never seen before transforming controller was challenging. This is the first time key mapping, and taking into consideration how a user holds the controller were so important in a game design. I started off mapping the controller to existing games to feel which ones are the best to showcase the product. Before deciding on a genre and started work planning for the game project and taking into considerations how much time i have and what manpower I have.
Level Design
I designed the levels for Bolt and WIZVR.
Bolt was really interesting as I wanted to make it partially procedural. I had to take into consideration how big a map should be, I did that by making the player character move in the straight line from one end of the map to the other and see how long it takes. The timing that felt best was used to determine how big as single map is.
I designed each map so that the users have an illusion of not moving on a track that is generated in a straight line by adding twist and turns, ups and downs and making them go into a cave/tunnel so they lose track of their sense of direction.
It was also challenging to design maps where the user would not just change into the plane mode and just fly through everything. I ended up using alot of mountains and caves to make them switch to a land vehicle and use power ups and items to bait them
As for WIZVR. I enjoyed creating the puzzles which the player has to light torches in the maze to open doors and gates to proceed. I also enjoyed using trigger boxes to scare players into thinking there is a threat in the dark maze
I learnt a lot from working on WIZ. I learnt how to use Rhino3D to model for plastic manufacturing. I learnt a little about PCB, Switches, Gyroscope etc. This is all thanks to Yuichiro Katsumoto the inventor of NinjaFuze and ex-researcher at Keio-Cube Center in National University of Singapore (NUS)
I learnt about 3d printing, mould making, CnC as I have to model the 3d imagines, prototype them by 3d printing them out and later cnc the final design to test the actual fitting before emailing the mould making company in china to check and see if the design is feasible.
I was the one who suggested the triangle form factor for turning the controller into rigid/wand mode and that greatly helps reduce the weight and size of the device as the bulky hinges are removed. I was the one who modeled the final designs of the device for plastic manufacturing and we were ready for the moulds to be commissioned.
Product Design
UI/UX
While I am still helping out The Co-Foundry, our accelerator, I helped the startup next door to do layout, and web designs. The web page is a property web site call www.truuue.com .
I also worked with a game studio to help redesign their UI/UX. The studio was called Kookoo Studios and they were trying to make a pokemon like game with fitness app as one of its mechanics
