Nudibranch design overview, dev diary#1
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Hi! I have been involved in the development of a game designed to make players sleep better for the past three weeks. I figured I’d start blogging about it, because it is a really interesting and weird project! This is my individual perspective of it as game designer, but we also have an official blog with a general overview of each week’s progress which you can check out here. The working title is Nudibranch. In a nutshell, Nudibranch is a smartphone game where you play as a seaslug hanging out in the ocean. You explore, become friends with fish, and collect algae. This may seem pretty random, but I assure you each and every aspect of the game is designed to improve the user’s sleep. So! How do we do this? My main role in the team is as game designer, so allow me to answer that question by going through the core steps that makes Nudibranch work (hopefully!) Step 1; Calming gameplayNudibranch is not a sleeping pill in the sense that we won’t make people flal asleep uncontrollably when playing- we’re simply a better alternative than other games. While some games are designed to keep the user engaged as long as possible, Nudibranch aims to provide the player with a calming experience so that they can wind down, relax, and become ready for sleep. Then, we want you to go away and sleep. 
Hi!
The calming gameplay is contained in a gamemode we call the explore mode. You play as a Nudibranch (pictured above). You swim around, collect algae and hang out with fishes. If you’re friends with the other fishes that is. There are no dangers. There is no pressure. It’s calming explorative fun where you get to see new things and interact with other fish.
Step 2; Sleeping habitsSo getting the player to calm down is one important part of Nudibranch, but we have a bigger vision than that. We want the player to use Nudibranch in their daily life to improve their sleeping habits. We want the player to use the game every evening before going to bed! How do we do this? First off, explore mode is only available during the evenings, when the user normally goes to sleep. The idea is that sleep game is played exclusively when the player plans to go to bed soon. That way the act of playing Nudubranch is accociated with the act of sleeping,, and much like brushing your teeth puts you in the sleep mindset, Sleepgame will hopefully do the same. Secondly, we reward the act of sleeping. Ideally, Nudibranch is played right before going to bed, and then put down as the user goes to sleep. When the player hops back on in the morning to turn off their alarm and check their notifications, the game rewards them based on how many hours they’ve slept, and how consistently they’ve slept for the latest couple of days. The better you sleep, the more things you get from the game! Examples are new foods, new info, but coolest of them all in my opinion, new fish species that starts populating the user’s ocean. 
Now you get to find it! While our explore mode is good once you’re in bed, the sleep rewards are designed to get you to want to sleep in time. We are gamifying sleeping. Is that a good idea though? I guess we’ll see! ————————————————————- Okay, so those are the ground pillars of Nudibranch! There are still a lot of things to define, refine, and iterate upon as always, but this is the core design ideas that goes behind most decisions while designing Nudibranch. This whole process is experimental and there’s no guarantee any of this will work. But maybe it will! That would be cool. What do you think? Until next time!
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