My initial Asian Grandma sketches were plump and short Asian grandmas with various traditional to stereotypical attires. However, it became clear to me that if I were to spend time creating these designs in Blender, that would take up a significant amount of time I thought was better to save instead. For this same reasons, that is also why I dropped incorporating the initial Grandma weapons I thought my grandma could use.

I began 3D modeling in Blender and I knew from the beginning that I wanted my game to be a flat-color 3D game. For reference, flat-color design is “... a user interface design style that uses simple, two-dimensional elements and bright colors…” (Norman). I wanted to use this design style because it was minimal and would thus save time, reduce visual noise such as textures and colors, and I liked how bright and colorful other flat-color 3D games looked. Thus, I started constructing my grandma’s body with both simplicity and the design style in mind.

The silhouette of the grandma should read as human yet also have a cartoon feel so to say. The hands were simplified into “knobs” because keeping in mind my time and technical restraints, I did not want to spend a bulk of my time animating fingers. Furthermore, having “knobs” as hands would still work because the Asian Grandma could still very much punch with this style of hands. The Grandma’s feet, as seen from the side view, stick out slightly and my intention was to have the feet be inside a shoe. Although the grandma might seem to have really small feet, I made them extra small to contribute to the grandma image of overall being seen as small and petite. I only gave my grandma eyebrows and a nose for sake of simplicity and I felt satisfied eyebrows and a nose were enough to imagine what the rest of the Grandma’s facial features might be.

During the early stages of designing my setting, I debated whether I should base the game on a specific location. I considered major cities such as New York City and San Francisco because anti-Asian hate crime increased especially in these areas. At the same time, however, I did not want to construct the setting to be too particular because I did not want to communicate a message saying that Asian hate crimes only happen in this city or major cities. However, I should note that I imagined that this imaginary city was in the US since the research I have done on Asian violence is based in the US. Therefore, I aimed to make the setting feel familiar enough like a vague city or town with the goal to convey that Asian violence has occured all across the country and no place is immune to such racism. I ended up using my actual Grandma’s neighborhood as a template for the initial setting. My Grandma lives in Hong Kong and when I lived in and visited Hong Kong, I remember her home fondly. Since her neighborhood was in Hong Kong, I worried less about whether a player would recognize the layout and it provided a guideline as to where I would put buildings which helped to save time. Due to travel restrictions, it had been a while since I had visited my grandma and so I used Google Maps to refamiliarize myself with her neighborhood. Google Maps street view was particularly helpful when determining what kind of tone I wanted my setting to communicate.

Once I had finished a rough sketch and outline of the outline of my neighborhood, I began adding the different components in Blender. Essentially, my sketch acted as the blueprint for my setting. 

One important note I must make is that had I taken advantage of the free 3D game assets creators post for free, it would have taken me much longer to complete this setting. For me, the 3D modeling process was extremely time consuming; the majority of the assets I used in this initial setting were premade. I am extremely grateful that free resources exist online, and they were a great help to making game design more accessible.

The game Doom and many others immerse their players using a first-person point of view, but it was important to me that players saw the Asian Grandma at all times and that they remembered that they were playing as an Asian Grandma. Furthermore, I thought it visually looked more intimidating to see the difference in height and stature between my racist and grandma character.

The camera was set up to move according to the mouse input also controlled where the grandma was punching. I also used a fog effect to make the game environment more exciting and mysterious.

I mocked up the UI in Figma first before implementing in Unity. As shown in image to the left, the UI during game play consists of the following: health bar in top right keeps track of the Grandma’s health, the time in the top right keeps tracks of how much time is left, and the “Racists Left” badge keeps track of how many racists are left.

Whenever the grandma lands an attack on a racist enemy, it damages the enemy. When the enemy lands a punch on the Grandma, the grandma takes damage as reflected in the health bar. However, Grandma's health is set up so that it heals a small amount every second. The core mechanic of this game is the grandma fighting with the racists.

The controls are fairly common for games and when testing it during my mid-term thesis review with my thesis committee, all the players were able to pic up the controls quickly which was good news because it suggested that my game was easy for new players to adjust to. The racist is set up to follow the Grandma and punch her when within range. Originally, I thought about using weapons, but given the time constraints, I decided to stick with simple combat moves of punching and kicking. I also added a feature where the Grandma could flip and this was mainly for entertainment purposes to see a Asian Grandma flip and remind the audience that they are indeed playing a game where the Grandma's strength has been buffed up. I am well aware that most Asian grandmas would lack the strength to effectively punch and kick racist attackers nor perform a flip. However, relating back to the fact that I wanted this game to have a humorous aspect, I thought making the Grandma extra strong and abnormal physical abilities would contribute to this as well as empowering Asian Amercans who play this game.