Engaging an audience: SpaceRace

For SpaceRace, the design team came up with some audience personas. Our target audience is 25-31 year old people, of any gender. To create our personas, we had to isolate our target audience, and how we were going to cater to them. Our audience includes women, who, according to my research, don't play a lot of space games. The reason for this is that space games are made for guys. With the laser guns, explosions and power-armoured space marines with necks the size of upturned mixing bowls, wearing half a car and a body silhouette like a fridge, it all becomes very masculine.

To combat this, we made "aesthetic" a design goal. We're setting our game in space after all. Space is universally (hehe) pretty. So, why not use that? The natural colours and patterns of nebulae, the creative freedom of interstellar starships. I can make art for anyone with this game.

The original design included a short scripted effect that would show the player escaping death by teleporting away. This was a design decision made to engage a female audience. Death in games is a typically triple A, high challenge, high punishment for losing a game. While some games have tried to alleviate, or even take advantage of this with their specific death mechanics (Bioshock, Dark Souls etc). I feel the idea is very masculine, and there is no harm in removing death as an implication by simply saving the player at the last moment.

The design of SpaceRace is filled with ways our design goals are met. Engaging an audience is difficult, especially through gameplay so simple. But I think we designed a game that met these needs rather well.