Alpha Lobby
The Sandbox Season 3 - August 2022
The Alpha Lobby was the main map of Season 3, where players spawned when starting the game. It’s a 2x2 showcasing all of their main IPs and teleporting players to the different experiences available. The key goals of the map were to present players with a quick overview of what they could find and understand the visual identity of each experience, while engaging with other players.
Architecture and Themes
The map is a fully multiplayer experience that showcased the 18 main IPs The Sandbox was working with, including Atari, The Walking Dead, Gucci, Rabbids and Snoop Dogg - very different from each other and each with its own identity. I worked together with Account Managers and partner teams to convey the best possible image for every one of them.
The players spawns at the start of the NFT Museum, showcasing the main assets of the season, and looking towards the Central Plaza. The middle of the 2x2 map is the Central Plaza, featuring a statue of The Sandbox’s Metaverse Guide (present in most experiences as a character) and a disco area for players to dance.
The map has several high points for players to look at the entire map.
1. General layout and view from spawn: NFT Museum and Central Plaza.
2. IP areas: Rabbids’ tropical land, Avenged Sevenfold, The Walking Dead.
3. Central Plaza.
4. IP areas: in the foreground, one of the entrances to Snoop Dogg’s VIP area, Care Bears mountains in the background.
5. IP areas: Deadmau5’s Mars-like environment, You’re a Big Boy Now’s desert landscape, Steve Aoki’s pool, Atari’s Crystal Castles, World of Women’s moroccan towers in the background.
6. View of the full map.
Quests
Every IP has its own quest (a singleplayer quest in a multiplayer hub, as multiplayer was not fully supported at the time of release and most mechanics had to be hacked in order to achieve it). They are unlocked in waves of 3 to support the UI’s layout. Most of them involve a scavenger hunt or a series of dialogues to get acquainted with the IP’s main themes. Each area also includes a teleportation system to directly link the player to other maps in the season.
