Development Info

• Team Size: Solo

• Genre: Linear Experience

• Engine: Unreal 5.2

• Release Date: October 2023

Design Challenges

Remote Collaboration: Spacebar is in Pittsburgh and I live in Dallas. This required me to collaborate remotely with the rest of the Spacebar team for most of the project and benefitted from consistent communication and clear timetables and milestones established early on. I set up a Parsec and Remote Desktop environment for the custom built hardware that I had installed on one of my few onsite visits and can now remotely access it to install updates or troubleshoot any issues that arise. This tech and the clear expectations and consistent communication ensured that this project launched without a hitch.

Cinematic, In Person Experience: The space scenes that went into the Spacebar experience are displayed across a trio of 4k monitors measuring about 21 feet long and 4 feet tall. One of my top priorities in creating content for this experience was creating something that was interesting and exciting to keep patrons returning but serene enough to not cause discomfort or dizziness. In user testing, I quickly discovered that any movement that wasn’t just a slow, steady right to left movement was disorienting and uncomfortable for anyone inside the bar. This feedback was instrumental in creating the right content to set the mood and leave bar patrons and staff happy and excited about the whole experience, but it would have been impossible to get without early testing.

New Problems to solve: This project was a completely unique experience for me to be a part of. Instead of users and playtesters, I had an audience and patrons. This required me to think like a director as well as a developer to make the project work as intended. Interesting shots, angles, subjects, and transitions all had to work within specs of the hardware powering the experience but also had to be memorable enough to make patrons want to come back and see what else is in the scene when it rolls around again. Suddenly cameras, sensor sizes, focal lengths, and dozens of other cinematic dials needed to be tweaked for an optimal experience that I never needed to consider before as a designer.

My Role as the Sole Developer

Initial Spacebar Launch:

• Communicated with client and ensured they knew the status of the project

• Designed and implemented several hours of space scenes with varying themes and foci

• Lighting, optimization, and other troubleshooting actions taken during creation of content

• Built and Packaged Unreal builds for deployment

• Priced, purchased, assembled custom hardware that runs the Spacebar simulation

• Conducted user research and user experience on the space scenes and compiled discomfort triggers and removing them from the scenes

• Remotely deployed iterative versions leading up to launch

Post Initial Release:

• Created special versions of the space simulation for smaller form factor of the pop up bar

• Created new version for Holiday theme with new scenes and animated reindeer in polar setting

• Currently creating procedural generation system with plans to make up to 90,000+ unique scene combinations using existing assets and tech