Ahoy! Overboard is an interactive game show experience proposed for The Strong National Museum of Play's new Beyond the Buzzer: Game Shows in America exhibit.
Over 4 months, our team of 10 RIT New Media Design and Interactive Development seniors partnered with The Strong to craft an exciting experience for museum guests young and old.
Overboard's exhibition at Imagine RIT 2025 and RIT EDGE 2025 reeled in 300+ contestants of all ages over 7 hours, along with a feature in local news and RIT's social media.
Highlights
Inspired by game shows with physical challenges such as Wipeout, American Ninja Warrior, and the game 'floor is lava,' Overboard contestants find themselves in a shipwreck-turned-gameshow-set, run by a super snarky seagull.
Full gameplay round from Overboard's exhibition at Imagine RIT
A player makes a big jump to get a doubloon at Imagine RIT
UI showcase
Art & Branding showcase
Meet Scully the Seagull, Overboard’s snarky host
Context
For their upcoming exhibit about the history of game shows, The Strong challenged us to create a unique game show experience installation that conveys the excitement and nostalgia of existing game shows.
With the exhibit launching in 2027, the Strong's team is busy planning its every detail. To kick off our collaboration, they shared some of the exhibit mockups to help inspire our interactive game show experience.
The Strong's latest mockups of the planned exhibit layout and interactive installations
Located in Rochester, NY, The Strong is the world's largest museum dedicated to the history of all things play, including toys, dolls, games, video games, and more recently, game shows.
Highly hands-on and interactive, it's a must-visit destination for thousands of children and families.
The Strong gave us a tour of their exhibit design shop, collections archive, and recently launched exhibit about the history of video games.
As a result, we gained insights into the technology, interactions, and gameplay patterns the museum already uses to help fuel the ideation process for our project.
After our tour, we had 2 weeks to design 3 unique game show experience concepts. The Strong provided a few options of game show mechanisms to base them on, such as Q&A games or puzzles.
We chose to focus on physical challenges, musical games, and games of chance, creating the following concepts:
Overboard, a time-based 'floor is lava' survival game emphasizing fast-paced, immersive interaction
Tune Duel, a music creation and memory game focused on rhythm, recall, and outlasting your opponent
Cha-Ching-O!, a personalizeable competitive Plinko game combining chance and light strategy
We pitched our concepts live to The Strong's executive team, who then met with the rest of their team to determine the concept that aligned best with their needs and goals for the exhibit.
Drumroll please…it's Overboard! The Strong selected Overboard as the concept they most wanted to see come to life, highlighting the appeal of an immersive 3D physical play space and high-energy gameplay.
Many aspects of Overboard evolved from our initial pitch, but the core gameplay mechanics remained consistent; collect treasure, beat the clock, and don't go overboard!
Our team was thrilled with the choice, but concerned about technical feasibility. We considered The Strong's second-ranked choice, Tune Duel, instead.
However, The Strong felt confident in Overboard's concept and encouraged us to pursue it, even if we had to stray from the initial pitch. Reassured, we didn't look back, and dove right into developing Overboard!
The Challenge
After a fast-paced ideation and pitch process, it was time to dive deeper into constraints, goals, and requirements, now that we had our focus on bringing one concept to life.
The Strong had key specifications for us to consider in our experience
RFID incorporation
Visitors will use RFID bands to track points won at each game show simulation that add to their overall score
<5 minute gameplay
Short-form gameplay is a must to ensure the exhibit has high throughput
As intuitive as possible
The experience should be extremely easy to pick up for a wide range of visitors
Adaptive difficulties
Include varied levels of play to serve visitors of different ages and experiences
Must have a host
Create a host to introduce and conclude each game while offering commentary
Beyond a screen
Tangible, physical interaction is key; not just a video game on a screen
We translated these into 3 key goals to keep us anchored
Intutive and accessible
Clear, straightforward, adaptive gameplay
Short and sweet
A quick, yet impactful experience
Fun to watch and play
A delightful experience for both players and audience
User Research
The Strong welcomes a wide range of visitors, targeting those aged 6 to 80. We focused Overboard's specific target audience to those aged 10 to 40, creating 3 personas to help better understand our users' needs.
10 • 4th Grader & Youth Soccer Player • Rochester, NY
"I love winning and having fun when playing games, but I get bored if it’s too easy or takes too long."
12 • 6th Grader & Wheelchair User with Cerebral Palsy • Rochester, NY
"I want to compete and have fun with my friends, but sometimes the way games are designed makes me feel left out."
42 • Mom & Market Research Manager • Rochester, NY
"I want to spend quality time with my kids, but it’s hard keep them engaged without relying too much on screens."
Persona illustrations designed by @stories via Freepik
Competitive Analysis
Researching other physical interaction-based experiences helped us gain clarity on the technological possibilities of our own, while also helping us narrow down our gameplay features.
Key Insights
A need for quick engagement
Young users need fast feedback, familiar interactions, and clear progress to stay interested
A need for accessible, inclusive design
Users of all abilities should be able to fully and confidently participate in the experience
A need for active, off-screen play
Parents value experiences that get kids moving and having fun without relying on digital devices
Prototyping and Testing
Our devs got right to work on a browser-based prototype of Overboard to get the core gameplay functions working. We wanted to get testing as soon as possible, so this proved essential to getting up and running quickly. Play for yourself (desktop only) over on itch.io!
Our devs got a working, interactive prototype up and running soon after our initial pitch. Meanwhile, the designers ironed out how to set up our projectors, and started mapping out the dimensions of our experience.
Two projectors would be ideal for the game floor to minimize shadows from the player, but to start we used just one along with a custom-built projector stand.
Visual Design
Since Overboard targets younger audiences, we wanted to give it a bright, bold, fun identity. The mood of Overboard's initial pitch felt too dark and expected; we wanted to push it to become more light, youthful, and unique. To achieve this, we chose a vibrant color palette, sharp geometric shapes, and playful typography.
Keywords
Kid-friendly, silly, energetic
Overboard's original logo had great dynamic movement, but it didn't feel intentional enough. We arrived at our final set of logos by balancing intention, movement, and texture.
We realized that an outlined, stylized 3D look felt more immersive and cohesive than an illustrative 2D style for the game visuals. 2D wasn't out completely; we used a lot of 2D assets in our marketing and website experiences.
A large part of our visual identity development came down to Overboard's host. Polly Roger the parrot felt too cliche and expected; what if our host could be more unique? Enter Scully, a super snarky seagull who isn't afraid to dish out sassy commentary toward Overboard contestants.
The best part? We were able to collaborate with a talented human voice actor, Kate Griffin, to truly bring Scully to life.
Prototyping and Testing
Key Insights
Audio feedback and host interaction are crucial
Result
Implemented Scully's voice lines for during game, intro, and end, along with sfx and music.
Overboard status indicator needed to be more clear
Result
Implemented a shark circling and water splash animation, along with sound effects.
Small game floor size meant multiplayer could be dangerous
Result
Cut multiplayer from our current scope. Prioritized intuitive, solo experience.
Development
At this point, all of our tech was finalized. How does it all come together?
Gameplay
All gameplay is created and run in Unity. Motion tracking is done via an Xbox One Kinect, which tracks the position of a user's feet.
Floor Projection
The game floor is digitally projected using two projectors pointing at the ground; these sit up high on projector stands.
The Unity output is then run through Resolume, allowing it to be sent to the projectors and other connected displays.
Wall Displays
The game wall is projected onto a projection screen using a short throw projector, while the leaderboard is displayed on a separate vertical screen.
Physical Space
Nautical fence posts surrounding the play area are both on-brand and key to our UX, indicating to players where the game floor borders are. Cutouts of flags, doubloons, and a to-scale Scully standee added to the fun. The icing on top was the custom-built treasure chest containing our RFID scanner, which proved engaging and accessible.
A Smashing Success at Imagine RIT!
Doubloons Collected
Gems Collected
Results
13 players at Imagine RIT filled out our feedback form. Check out the results!
Takeaways and Next Steps
Start simple, then build
Hone in on simple core elements first for an intuitive experience.
Enhance further with unified branding, consistent marketing, and an immersive environment.
Progress through playability
Embrace change as it comes
Next Steps
Multiplayer
Why'd we cut it?
Game floor was too small to prevent collisions between players.
What’s next?
Increase game floor size by adding another Kinect to allow 2-4 person games.
Why implement it?
Increase interactivity, memorability, and throughput of exhibit.
Calibration UI
Why'd we cut it?
Chose to prioritize game features over behind-the-scenes tools.
What’s next?
Implement a custom interface for setting the floor size and lining up the Kinect
Why implement it?
Simplifies setup for clients regardless of technical background.
Ambient Lighting
Why'd we cut it?
Time and money.
What’s next?
Increase lighting around merch table and back half of exhibit.
Why implement it?
Clearer merch tables, signage, and more immersive exhibit area.
UX, UI, Motion, Marketing
Unity, UI Implementation
Branding, Character Design, Animation, 3D Texturing
UX, UI, Exhibit Design, Asset Production
3D Modeling, Motion
Unity, UI Implementation, Kinect Configuration
3D Modeling, Unity, UI Implementation
UX, UI, Exhibit Design, Marketing, Asset Production
UX, UI, Marketing, Website Design
Animation, Character Dialogue
Voice Actor
We were thrilled to work with Trey to memorialize our time working on Overboard through a mini documentary. Huge thanks also to Sebrtofficial, who worked with us to create a custom audio track for Overboard's intro sequence.
© Overboard 2025. All rights reserved.