The looks like sketch model is meant to address several key aspects of the experience of the Jellybean Rock Wall room. The model shows the overall setup of the room and also demonstrates how the player would move around in that environment to play.
The setup of the room is crucial for gameplay since the ability to reach the handholds has to be feasible yet moderately difficult for the players. The room has to be large enough to safely fit the five players but small enough to induce a cramped "Twister"-like environment. The aesthetics and feeling of the room are also important for this game. The model consists of two of the four walls of the room (the other two walls would look similar to the first two in the model) so that it is easy to look into the room. There is a ledge around the bottom of the room that indicates to players that they cannot step on the ground and have to be on the wall at all times to win the game. This is consistent with the setup of current rooms in Boda Borg that require guests to be off the ground. There are some small ledges around the room that guests can climb onto and there are jelly bean shaped handholds around the room that guests hold on to. There are three flexible human shaped figures in the model that demonstrate how players can move their hands and legs to reach the required hand holds.
Room Layout
The looks like sketch model is a 1/12 model of the room. In order to make the room feel small enough that players will have to scramble over one another, the room will be as small as possible within the Open World guidelines. The room will be 9' by 11' with walls that are 10' high.
Guests will be able to climb up and ascend the wall, but not every guest will need to do that in order to be successful in the room and the game. Additionally, if the players choose to climb in the corner regions, then they will be able to reach the holds on more than one wall at the same time.
Room Backdrop
Jellybeans typically come in big dispensers and are seen in clusters as seen in this photo.
However, a background that looks like this would be extremely cluttered and confusing and would take away from the player's experience. Instead, we explored two different candy striped patterns. I prototyped one wall with pink and white stripes and the other with pink and green stripes so that both could be seen within the context of the room. The white striped wall provides the advantage that when the colored light is on, the color will be more easily seen on the white parts of the wall.
Placement of Colored Handholds
The jellybeans are distributed throughout the room in a manner such that no two same colored jelly beans are directly adjacent to one other. The colors are arranged this way since the players may have to touch any combination of colors at any given time. Handholds of a single color have been placed such that they can be reached with some difficulty; since adult human wingspans are around 5-6 feet, the holds are about 3-4 feet apart from one another.
The minimum number of jelly beans of a single color needed in a room is based on the maximum of 5 players and each player having 2 hands, resulting a minimum of 10 holds. That number is doubled to allow different combinations of holds and to account for people stepping on holds (though only holds held in hands count). This was kept consistent between the two walls too so that players could climb on the corners and touch multiple walls.
Guest Experience
Guests will walk into the room and notice the ledge. Before the door closes, they will climb onto the ledge. The light starts flashing red- the guests panic and think they are losing and try to climb as high as they can. When the light stops flashing, they are all hanging on to different colored handholds, so they lose. They exit and reenter. This time the lights flash blue. The guests realize the light corresponds to the color of handholds that they have to hang on to and rush to hang onto blue holds. As the colors change, the guests move around the room and begin crossing each others' paths and getting tangled up as they try to find the appropriate hold! With the purple light, there is more activity and some initial confusion until the guests realize they have to "mix colors" when they choose the handholds and soon they get through 5 rounds. The guests are thrilled to have survived all the rounds and won the game!