BY: Kelly G., Ari B., Andreas, Gabe M., Lorenzo A., Yosief A.
Artist intention:
Microdoze. Ever wondered what it was like to be a frat bro? Neither did we, but imagine what it would be like to go on a psychedelic trip in a frat house. With Microdose we wanted to build an intense, crazy, high energy, and quirky game that was just fun to play, but fun to feel. From the start, we made an effort to intentionally design our playable characters’ movement and sensation—thinking about how the controls feel, how the player slides, and how the physics respond. In the end we collectively settled on that feeling of icy, chaotic movement, which became the base of our Microdoze slice.
For background on our intention, our biggest inspiration came from games like It Takes Two, where bosses feel like events, not just fights. We wanted to build something that feels continuous. That’s why levels matter so much to us. At first, the idea of having levels wasn’t part of the plan, but as we developed the story and mechanics, it became clear that progression—both through gameplay and narrative—was essential (which will later be discussed in playtesting feedback). Each level builds on the last, with bosses and settings that get weirder, funnier, and more memorable. That’s how the Evil Ice Cream Man was born—a boss with personality, chaos, and style.
We leaned into that absurdity through our visuals too: using silly clipart and pixel art to create contrast with the game’s physics and mechanics. Our goal was to give Microdoze a light, funny vibe while maintaining the physics and gameplay. We made sure to bring all these different components together with an originally produced soundtrack, personalized for each emotion and action we intend the user to experience.
Ultimately, this game is for people who get it—the ones who love a bit of chaos, brain rot, and good design.
Model — Mind Map
The image above illustrates our initial (consolidated) mental model, encapsulating the broader game mechanics and interactive concepts we aim to implement. Central to this vision is the antagonist—an Evil Ice Cream Man (EICM)—positioned atop a fridge, representing the gameplay arena. This villain continuously launches dangerous projectiles towards the player, who is symbolized as a nimble hockey stick at the bottom of the screen. Players must skillfully dodge these incoming threats and utilize their hockey stick to strategically shoot pucks back at the EICM, thereby dealing damage and working towards his defeat.
Expanding on this core mechanic (figure 2), we brainstormed several engaging and supportive game elements to enhance player interaction. Notably, power-ups take the form of unique mushrooms, which provide health boosts, represented visually by trippy mushroom icons reminiscent of hearts seen in Minecraft. The mind map clearly illustrates these supplementary mechanics: ice cream scoops temporarily immobilize the player by “freezing” them, requiring a short duration to “melt” before regaining movement; icicles directly inflict damage upon impact, pushing the player closer to defeat; and crucially, players must first overcome an “ice cube wall,” which acts as a protective barrier for the EICM (since Stanford loves acronyms), by repeatedly striking and breaking it with their projectiles before they can directly harm the antagonist.
This mental model distinctly highlights the core gameplay loop, emphasizing dynamic interaction through defensive evasion and offensive action. Success in the game hinges on players’ quick reflexes, precise timing in dodging threats, and strategic anticipation of enemy attack patterns. By maintaining continuous tension between defense and offense, the gameplay ensures sustained player engagement, clearly outlining victory conditions—defeating the EICM—and failure scenarios resulting from excessive damage
Figure 2
Slice:
Our game is primarily a vertical slice, designed around a fully polished and immersive gameplay experience focused on a battle against an Evil Ice Cream Man (EICM). The level takes place within a refrigerator environment where players, controlling a hockey stick, must skillfully evade ice cream scoops and icicles thrown by the EICM, while strategically returning pucks to break through an ice cube barrier and defeat the antagonist. This single, detailed level thoroughly demonstrates essential game mechanics, aesthetics, and interactions, such as health represented by trippy mushrooms and distinct projectile effects. Although the refined start screen and narrative introduction align with elements typically found in a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the depth and completeness of gameplay specifically tailored around this core confrontation emphasize its identity as a vertical slice enhanced by MVP-like component.
Initial Decisions:
From the very beginning, we prioritized creating a game that genuinely felt good to play—something enjoyable to control, intuitive in mechanics, and infused with enough absurdity to consistently entertain players. The concept of sensation guided our early decisions heavily, prompting us to implement responsive, slippery movement mechanics to reflect the icy refrigerator setting. Each puck shot by the player needed to feel impactful and satisfying, encouraging players to continuously engage and experiment.
We drew a lot of our inspiration from games like It Takes Two, where bosses are more than mere obstacles—they are memorable, character-driven encounters. Thus, the Evil Ice Cream Man (EICM) was developed not just as an opponent, but as a comically villainous figure whose presence added humor and personality to our gameplay. We initially entertained the idea of a cooperative multiplayer mode to amplify this sense of fun and fellowship. However, ultimately we settled on a single-player experience to streamline gameplay and maintain tight narrative control. Despite this pivot, the value of fellowship remained central, driving us to craft humor, quirky visuals, and playful scenarios that players would naturally want to share and discuss with friends.
The decision to use a combination of clipart and pixel art was strategic, facilitating rapid development while instantly communicating the game’s funny psychedelic vibe. We deliberately chose playful and exaggerated visuals—such as brightly colored mushrooms for power-ups and exaggerated expressions for the EICM—to create a stark, amusing contrast with the realistic physics underlying the gameplay. This decision reinforced our desired tone of playful absurdity, making each encounter with the game both surprising and weirdly odd.
Regarding formal elements, we clearly defined player objectives early on. Players must consistently evade projectiles, manage their health, and ultimately defeat the EICM by overcoming barriers and precise timing of their puck attacks. To deepen strategy and engagement, we incorporated various projectile effects: ice cream scoops cause temporary freezing, momentarily restricting player movement, while icicles inflict direct damage. Meanwhile, trippy mushrooms serve as crucial power-ups, offering health restoration or temporary performance boosts, thus providing an additional layer of tactical depth.
We also deliberately structured levels to foster exploration and narrative progression. Each environment shift—from the initial refrigerator to a refrigerator with several ice walls and a more intense battle—was carefully considered to ensure visual interest and gameplay variation. In our full version of the game, our environment shifts will be much more drastic to include additional unconventional settings such as trash cans and microwaves. In the end, these shifts help maintain player curiosity, encouraging them to continually adapt their strategies and explore new aspects of the game’s absurd and fantastical world.
Overall, every decision—whether visual, mechanical, or narrative—was guided by our core values of sensation, humor, and fellowship, ensuring our game consistently delivers an enjoyable, immersive, and genuinely amusing experience.
Iteration + Testing
Across six formal play-test sessions we transformed from an initial paper narrative, to a fully functional and playable vertical slice. Each playtest featured students with different experiences with video gaming. The majority of our early play testers had extensive and consistent experiences with playing video games, which helped us iterate fast as their insights were very rich with references and suggestions that are rooted in the success they’ve experienced in other games. This was important in aligning our efforts towards iterations that would have major impacts. Each formal playtest and the iterations that followed are outlined below:
Our first narrative-only prototype on May 6 showed the concept resonated but also exposed confusion about structure and stakes. Testers loved the edible-gone-wrong metaphor and the idea of traveling through surreal freezer and landfill worlds, yet they kept asking what the overarching goal was, whether levels were linear, and how each environment tied back to a single boss fight. They also warned us of the spoken backstory dragged; by the end of the session they were yawning. We left that test convinced the plot had to be telegraphed in seconds, not minutes, and that every environment needed a visible mini-boss that rolled up into an eventual showdown with the Evil Ice-Cream Man.
(May 16th: First playable demo with an addictive bouncing of blocks)
Ten days later, on May 16, we put the first playable demo in front of new testers. The ricocheting-puck mechanic was immediately “addictive,” but our long pre-level narration again lost them, and they misread shattered ice cubes as collectibles à la Minecraft. Players tried to juggle blocks for extra points because there was no damage feedback on the boss. We swapped out harmless-looking cones for jagged icicles, layered a red flash and grunt on each successful hit, and turned cube fragments into screen shake rather than loot. We also noticed testers instinctively pressed space and shift, so we remapped shoot and dash to those keys.
By May 20 the team had merged its competing scripts into a single projectile-return system and introduced the triple-layer ice wall. Play-throughs confirmed the new barrier finally looked like something to break, but the game still felt bare and static. Testers wanted escalating difficulty, visual justification for moving the hockey stick, and clearer separation between “good” mushrooms and “bad” desserts. We added a subtle ramp-up in icicle speed, tied health refills to mushroom drops, and made pucks rebound only if struck by the stick’s sweet spot, giving movement purpose.
On May 23 we brought the build to section and watched fresh players flounder through an unexplained control scheme. Most didn’t realize they could fire pucks, distinguish icicles from ice cubes, or read the ice-wall as a win condition. The takeaway was brutal: no one will experiment if they don’t know what verbs exist. Overnight we inserted a one-screen control primer, an arrow pointing at the first ice slab, and a quick freeze-frame the first time ice cream hits, reinforcing danger.
Even after those fixes, the May 27 session proved that story and mechanics were still disconnected. Players assumed pink scoops were power-ups, tried to “eat” them, and wondered why health vanished. They also questioned why they suddenly could shoot pucks on level two with no explanation. We rewrote the intro to show the stick absorbing a magic puck dispenser, dropped a flashing health bar under the boss, and locked the next room until a mushroom was consumed, guaranteeing immediate practice.
(May 29th: Enabled full WASD control and spamming)
Our playtest on May 29 confirmed the loop finally clicked: testers spammed pucks, dodged icicles, and recognized freezing as punishment. They still believed spamming carried no downside, so we limited puck inventory and added a short cooldown. One tester reached for the mouse expecting vertical movement, so we enabled full WASD control and adjusted enemy aim to feel fair. To cement the psychedelic tone we layered a neon freezer background, synced a synth-pop track that accelerates at thirty-percent boss health, and replaced placeholder sprites with cohesive crunchy-pixel art—including heart icons that drop from shattered slabs. By the last run-through players shouted “freeze him before he melts you,” exactly the clarity and energy we wanted.
Since the May 29th playtest, we have made significant strides to self correct and improve the overall aesthetic and playability of our game, while widening the accessibility. Reflected in our final product, we iterated to
- make a cohesive design choice
- added a really colorful dynamic background that supports our theme
- Added instructions on how to play before game play
- changed the sequence of the game to force the player to test capabilities in order to learn functionality and use them in the future
- Added different music and sounds in different areas and feelings of the game
- Added health in the form of icon hearts that can be awarded by breaking through the ice
As the design matured we made two deliberate changes to widen accessibility. First, the original plan relied on a color-shift to indicate how close each ice cube was to shattering, but color-blind play-testers reported they could not track the state changes. We replaced the hue swap with progressively deeper fracture lines that crawl across the surface; the animation reads at a glance for all players, regardless of color perception. Second, we adjusted the hockey-stick collision so that a puck rebounds even on a near miss, sparing players the frustration of pixel-perfect timing. Skilled players who do strike the sweet spot still get a payoff—those “clean” hits fire the puck back at higher speed—yet the generous hitbox lets newcomers and players with cognitive or motor challenges enjoy the loop without penalty. Together those tweaks keep vital information visible and core actions achievable across a much broader range of abilities.
(June 3rd)
Our final playtest on June 3rd was crucial in helping us focus on game design clarity, responsiveness, and producing a party-vibe polish. The objective (for the player) is now impossible to miss: every projectile shows an evil grin, an on-screen prompt shouts “Smack the Ice-Cream Boss,” and a flashing arrow at the top of level 0 tells players where trouble lives. Color-only break-states were replaced weeks ago with fracture lines for accessibility, but this pass deepens the cue by animating cracks and sliding the health hearts downward when damage lands. The tutorial flow now drip-feeds verbs: space-bar prompts advance narrative panels, an arrow keys overlay fades once the stick first moves, and the very first pick-up is a red mushroom that restores the enlarged health icons, cementing the link between power-ups and survival. Pucks are introduced as a finite resource—an ammo counter blinks when you’re low—while “clean” stick hits still spike velocity for skilled players. To stop the top-screen speed-run, an unseen force shoves you back until the ice-cream boss is wounded enough; when it triggers, the carton spits a randomized insult from a new taunt array. Hurt feedback is louder and brighter, swapping the cutesy yelp for a sharp “ouch” and bathing the screen in red. Levels 1 and 2 inherit these cues, freeze the floor on snowflake hits, and tint the UI with frosty shards; both arenas are widened and packed with freezer junk—broccoli, gyoza, fish sticks—to sell the psychedelic landscape. A fresh game-over screen puts “Restart Level” first, and the ending now lingers: the defeated carton slumps, weeps rainbow syrup, and invites the player forward with a sad wobble before the lights fade to a credits-style tunnel. Together these tweaks lock the experience into a readable, responsive, neon-party bullet-brawl that no tester can misinterpret.
Following June 3rd, we took a step back and compiled a list of the biggest concerns throughout the playtesting: 1) understanding the narrative 2) understanding the mechanics and 3) understanding the objectives. Recognizing these big 3 gaps of knowledge, we devise subtle prompts to help guide the user to learn more about the game, their capabilities, and goals.
We created an entire new game, but each of our design choices here is the result of careful playtesting and feedback inquiries.In the end, through many iterations and rounds of testing we were able to efficiently pinpoint strong and weak points in our games engagement and playability, and receive direct feedback that inspired meaningful change. For example, in our final rendition we added large on-screen arrows that point upward at the start of level 0 so players immediately know which direction to move (testers had said they weren’t sure where to go). We triggered a pop-up that reads “Press Shift!” the instant an ice projectile touches the player (since early players did not realize ice hurts or that ‘Shift’ launches pucks). Lastly, we gave the avatar an audible “Ouch!” voice line and a red screen flash whenever damage lands (because testers needed clearer feedback that they’d been hit).
Original Creations:
Many of the artistic audio and visuals experienced in our game was creatively produced from scratch:
Visuals:
We took the time, energy, and creative output to design and develop unique game power ups. In our final game we produce 4 power ups: one gives players health, another one gives the player super speed, another one makes them invisible, and the last one makes their pucks speed up whenever they are hit. Each icon (shown below) encoded with the powerups were designed to reflect their effect based on their shape and color. We intended to maintain the playful theme of a frat house fridge, so we included an energy drink, a green gatorade, a mystery powder bag, and a random fiery chilli. For each of these power ups, we also implemented unique visual effects on the player, such as green particles that explode around the player when they get healed, a rainbow trail effect when sped up, slight invincibility when invincible, and fiery trails behind sped up pucks.
We also designed the health UI for both the boss and the player from scratch. Originally the player had a 3 heart health system represented by 3 mushrooms of different ranges of cartoonishness. This was later changed to a health bar with a scrolling pixel rainbow effect to better match the aesthetic of the game and a trippy heart reminiscent of the mystical object the player eats at the start of the game. We also created custom pixel assets to contain the boss’s health as to give it a more intense, dark souls look while still fitting in the limited screen real estate.
Audio:
The audio was handcrafted using Logic on Gabe’s laptop / MIDI piano. The goal was to create a simple, hypnotic melody that one could zone out and game to. Good video game music design allows one to maintain and extend their focus and immersion into the game, so the music complexity slowly builds through the tutorial, level 1, and level 2.
The sound effects were made to be consonant with the backing melody whenever it is a positive sound, and also uses harmonic intervals. The ‘hurt’ sound effects use a dissonant interval that is also outside of the key of F minor, making it hopefully convey pain and discomfort in a natural way. For the intro music, we created a custom mix of the bassline to Ke$ha’s Blow with low-pass filters to give the impression that we are hearing a rager from behind a wall, as well as some pitch modulation to match our game’s home key of F minor. Future iterations would hopefully continue to scale out these motifs across more ambitious (re)harmonizations of the theme.
