Toil
A location-based AR crafting experience that brings magical social interaction into the real world
Role: Designer
Engine: Unity (2015)
Platforms: Mobile
Team Size: Solo
Toil is a location-based augmented reality game that encourages collaborative exploration and magical crafting through physical-world interactions.
Experience
Players explore real-world environments, like parks, cafes, and neighborhoods, to discover virtual magical components placed at geo-specified points.
When two players come within crafting range (about 100 feet), they can initiate a co-operative crafting ritual, forging new enchanted items not available in solo gameplay.
This mechanic promotes face-to-face social interactions, and allows players to level up by collaboratively creating rare enchantments.
Contributions
Game Design & Mechanics: Conceived and implemented the core loop of location-based item discovery, crafting, and leveling. Designed spatial crafting prompts and proximity checks for interactions.
System & UI Architecture: Crafted user flows covering exploration, inventory management, crafting (solo & multiplayer), and notifications of nearby players.
Data Collection Framework: Built scripts (PHP and server-side database) to capture gameplay telemetry and survey responses anonymously.
Pilot Deployment: Scoped and executed a pilot study in Orlando, FL—limited to the area for focused data on real-world social dynamics and safety-related design considerations.
Social Design
Crafting as a Social Catalyst: By limiting certain items to collaborative crafting, the game encourages players to initiate in-person communication, fostering real social probes such as “What ingredients do you have?”
Designing for Safety: Target locations selected to be safe and publicly accessible. Privacy was prioritized: no PII collected, encrypted data storage, and informed consent prior to participation.
Research Focus: Designed to test key hypotheses:
Does direct virtual collaboration increase face-to-face or social media–based interactions in reality?
How do interaction patterns differ by gender and age group?