In 2020 I began my Master's degree at UNBF with an intended focus of studying asymmetry in games (asymmetric games being games where players have different actions and abilities, and symmetric games being games where all players have the same actions and abilities), and how they affected overall player experience. With this in mind, I began my project on exploring the relationship between game symmetry and player experience within competitive games. This particular focus was inspired by the love/hate relationship I have with games such as League of Legends (most who play this game would describe it in a similar fashion), and how interesting I find the dynamics they create. When looking at asymmetry, I can see so much potential for design space, but so much drawback to its complexity.

To investigate this, I created a testbed game named Slimeball using Unity. In this game, players control different characters all themed around classic fantasy classes (Knight, Wizard, Barbarian), and hit a ball back and forth to each other like in Pong. Unlike Pong, in Slimeball players have access to three unique abilities defined by their character class which they could use to one-up the other player. I also implemented two gamemodes into Slimeball: Quick Match to represent a symmetric experience and Showdown to represent an asymmetric experience.

Creating Slimeball was a technical challenge as I was still very new to game development and Unity. Furthermore, due to project requirements, the game needed to be playable remotely online. I experimented with several different networking libraries with mixed success (mostly due to lag issues), and landed on Fusion which I used to complete the game. In this process, I was able to experience many different aspects of the game development and design world:

• I had to design a game that was learnable within a short period of time and was easily understandable to a wide audience.
• I had to source art for the game, as well as learn the basics of pixel art and 2D animation to create character sprite sheets.
• I had to source and mix existing sounds, as well as create sound effects.
• I had to implement the game using Unity, and learn game networking in Fusion and other prospective libraries
• I had to run playtest groups and collect data to balance the game sufficiently

In the end, I found that asymmetry can have a positive effect on overall player experience, and specifically player autonomy, within competitive settings. I feel through this experience I gained many useful skills that will help my career greatly in the future.

If you wish to read my thesis, you can find it here. If you wish to explore the game Slimeball further or even try it with a friend, you can check out the demo on my itch.io page here.