Odyssey
2025
Adventure Game built in under 24 hours
BEST SOUND DESIGN
HACKATHON
ROLE
Experience Designer
TIMELINE
Mar 2025
TEAM
1 UX Designer, 3 Engineers
tools
Notion, Canva, Chat GPT
OVERVIEW
An exciting challenge
At the 2025 HBCU Game Jam hosted by Spelman Innovation, we were challenged to create a game from scratch in under 24 hours, with the twist theme “SWAP.” This sparked the idea for Odyssey, an adventure game built around character-swapping mechanics. Our team integrated dynamic soundscapes to deepen emotional resonance, ensuring the gameplay felt as captivating to the ears as it did to the eyes. The result was a first-time game project that not only stretched our creativity under tight constraints but also won the Best Sound Design category.
PROBLEM
Why So Many Puzzle Games Feel Forgettable
Many puzzle and platformer games rely on repetition and surface-level mechanics. While they may be visually polished, they often lack emotional resonance, narrative depth, or meaningful collaboration between characters. Players are left solving puzzles that feel disconnected from the world and from each other, reducing immersion and long-term engagement.
We wanted to explore how swapping characters, paired with environmental storytelling and sound-driven design, could create a richer, more emotionally grounded experience.
THE CHALLENGE
How might we design a game that incorporates swapping characters as a core theme while prioritizing an immersive gameplay experience?
RESEARCH
A Glimpse Into Immersive Game Design
We studied how players emotionally connect to games through sound, environment, and mechanics. These insights confirmed that atmosphere, perspective, and mechanics are deeply intertwined, and should be designed together.
CONCEPT
Two Characters. One World. Infinite Perspectives.
Odyssey centers around two playable characters, Kai and Saga, whose abilities complement each other. Players must switch between them to navigate obstacles, manipulate environments, and uncover hidden paths.
Rather than treating character-swapping as a gimmick, we made it the foundation of both the narrative and the gameplay, further reinforcing the idea that no single perspective is enough to solve every problem.
GAME DESIGN
Creating the Overall Experience
Sound was central to creating immersion and reinforcing the emotional beats of each puzzle and environment. Rather than composing original tracks under a tight 24-hour hackathon timeframe, our team chose to adapt existing music from Lost in Play, a game we deeply admired for its whimsical yet atmospheric soundscape. Each track was intentionally mapped to a specific level, such as pairing “Lost in a Forest” with the Enchanted Forest light puzzles or “Lost in a Dream” with the floating Sky Island, to heighten mood and guide player pacing. This was about curating audio that aligned with our design goals: emphasizing atmosphere, signaling tension shifts, and rewarding progression. Importantly, we were given explicit permission to use these tracks and provided proper credit, ensuring our sound design honored the original creators while serving as a meaningful layer of storytelling in Odyssey.
WORLD & ATMOSPHERE
Designing Through Sound and Scenery
Each environment in Odyssey was crafted to feel emotionally distinct and mechanically meaningful:
empathy
kindness
empathy
sympathy
Rather than treating character-swapping as a gimmick, we made it the foundation of both the narrative and the gameplay, further reinforcing the idea that no single perspective is enough to solve every problem.
Music and ambient sound were used to signal danger, discovery, and emotional beats. When players move from one area to another, the soundscape shifts, reinforcing narrative progression and immersion.
CHARACTERS
Kai [ Strength & Stability ]
Kai can move heavy objects, break barriers, and manipulate the physical world. His strength grounds the player and enables large-scale environmental changes.
Sage [ Agility & Control ]
Saga moves with speed and precision, able to manipulate light, navigate tight spaces, and control wind currents. Her abilities allow access to areas Kai cannot reach.
Each puzzle in Odyssey was designed to require both characters, ensuring that collaboration is never optional. Players must think about:
Which character can access which space
How switching perspectives reveals new solutions
USER PERSONA
Who are we innovating for?
Odyssey was designed with gamers in mind, especially students and young adults who crave puzzle-rich, story-driven experiences but often feel frustrated by repetitive mechanics or shallow gameplay. We developed a user persona to highlight core needs, such as puzzles that feel purposeful, character abilities that complement each other, and mechanics that deepen immersion rather than distract from it. These insights guided our priorities: making character swapping central to progression, crafting puzzles that reward creativity, and ensuring each environment feels fresh, engaging, and meaningful to explore.
MY ROLE & TEAM
I led GoBuddy’s product and experience design while also driving key technical decisions behind how personalization and retrieval were implemented. From shaping the interaction flows and visual system to defining how user context was structured and passed into the AI, I bridged design and engineering to ensure the product felt intuitive, trustworthy, and useful. As one of the primary presenters on Demo Day, I was responsible for communicating GoBuddy’s vision, user problem, and technical approach, translating a complex system into a clear, compelling story for judges and peers.
REFLECTION
A great success!
Building Odyssey taught me that impactful games go beyond mechanics, they create moments of immersion, emotion, and connection. Working with a team of first-time game developers in a fast-paced hackathon setting reminded me how creativity thrives when diverse ideas come together. Odyssey represents our vision of a narrative-driven puzzle adventure, where role-swapping and sound design deepen the player’s experience. By integrating dynamic audio elements with engaging mechanics, we crafted a game that not only entertained but also left players feeling fully immersed in its world. It proves how design and storytelling, when centered on the player, can transform a simple idea into an unforgettable journey.
ColorStack AAMU
2025
Leading a community of Technical talent as Co-President
LEADERSHIP
DESIGN
Coming Soon