Welcome aboard the making of Race to Riches, where our team designed, built, and brought this intergalactic game show to life!
Our toolkit:
Arduino
Figma
Framer
VSCode/Node.js
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe After Effects
Visiting the Strong's interactive workshop to see their prototyping process.
At the start of the semester, we visited the Strong Museum of Play to kick off Beyond the Buzzer. Exploring interactive exhibits and classic game show mechanics helped us gather inspiration for creating an engaging and immersive experience.
Initial concept renderings for the Beyond the Buzzer experience.
One of the most crucial aspects of our visit was to closely examine the existing game show mechanics developed by the Strong, as it provided valuable insights into how these elements are structured and function in practice. This allowed us to identify key features and strategies that we could adapt and incorporate into our Race to Riches, ensuring that we could create a more engaging and dynamic experience.
Exploring how the character creation exhibit works.
Zilby is a cheerful, curious alien from the vibrant planet Glimmeron, where color and kindness reign. After discovering Earth’s game shows, Zilby became obsessed—watching countless episodes, collecting trivia, and falling in love with the excitement and energy of it all.
Now serving as the host and guide of Race to Riches, Zilby welcomes players aboard their intergalactic taxi, introducing each game, offering tips, and celebrating successes. Equal parts trivia collector and cultural ambassador, Zilby shares fun facts, game show history, and plenty of encouragement, making every guest feel like a star contestant.
Exploring Zilby’s colors, expressions, and UFO.
Initial pencil sketch of Zilby's character design.
Zilby’s outfits: everyday look and space cab driver uniform.
First Arduino button prototype successfully running with code.
Cardboard test model of the button console.
We mapped out the dimensions of the UFO to design an immersive play space, carefully planning where players will enter, exit, and interact with the game.
Our finalized room layout sketch, complete with designated entry and exit points.
Our cardboard prototype showcase featured a basic UI alongside the button console, as well as a mini model of our envisioned physical set, allowing us to test both the design and interface for better usability.
A preliminary model of our UFO exterior.
A classmate trying out our trivia game while team members observe.
A preliminary model of our console and seating.
Classmates gathered around for the first showcase of the semester.
To bring our button console to life, we visited our professor's house to build the main structure. With his guidance, we cut, assembled, and secured the framework. The next steps include incorporating Arduino-powered buttons, adding a curtain around the base for a polished look, and decorating the top panel to match our intergalactic theme.
Assembling the console's support structure.
Drilling together the top panel of the console.
Getting hands-on guidance from our professor, Jason Arena.
Final assembled structure of the button console.
Our team had the opportunity to present our project at EDGE 2025, RIT’s Experiential Development & Games Expo. Hosted by the School of Interactive Games and Media, EDGE is a campus-wide celebration of student innovation in interactive media. At our booth, we showcased the current state of our intergalactic game show experience, including the functional button console, gameplay loop, and visual development.
Visitors—including students, faculty, and industry professionals—were able to test the trivia mechanics, interact with our physical prototype, and provide feedback.
Presenting at EDGE allowed us to share our process, gather insights from a wide audience, and see how players responded to the collaborative chaos of racing for Cosmic Coins. It was an exciting milestone in the development of Race to Riches and a great way to celebrate our progress with the RIT community.
A player testing out the game's trivia mechanics.
A judge observing our onboarding animations.
Talking through our UI and gathering feedback from a play test.
To bring the experience to life, we began by storyboarding each major scene—from Zilby’s crash landing on Earth to gameplay tutorials and possible outcomes. This process helped us map out pacing, dialogue, and transitions.
Once finalized, we moved into animation, designing and rigging Zilby for motion, creating custom assets, and syncing visual sequences with voiceovers and UI interactions. These animations play a key role in onboarding players, reinforcing game mechanics, and keeping the experience fun, cohesive, and full of personality.
Storyboarding Zilby’s crash landing and intro sequence.
Storyboard with onboarding, gameplay instructions, and win/lose outcomes.
A timelapse showing the step-by-step construction of our UFO’s dome.
Working through constructing our UFO's cardboard skirt.
Piecing together the skirt segments with tape for a solid base.
Adding cosmic details to bring the Glimmeron space sky to life on our console.
Our RFID scanner, now functional and ready for interaction at Imagine RIT.
Turning cardboard and tape into a glowing UFO cab skirt.
Stitching a custom cloth cover for one of the exhibit seats.
Because what’s an intergalactic game show without a few inflatable aliens?
Getting the UFO skirt ready for a crisp and clean final presentation.
For Imagine RIT, we transformed a regular classroom into a full intergalactic experience to showcase Race to Riches. We built a decorative UFO dome centerpiece, filled the room with space-themed decorations, and set up star projectors to create the feeling of being aboard Zilby’s stranded taxi. Visitors weren’t just playing a trivia game—they were stepping into another world.
Throughout the day, guests of all ages explored the space, interacted with our button console, raced against the clock to collect Cosmic Coins, and experienced the full journey from onboarding to gameshow trivia. Going all-out with the environment made the experience even more memorable and brought the story of Race to Riches to life in a whole new way.
Visitors lining up to enter the Race to Riches UFO.
Players testing out their gameshow knowledge.
A look inside our live setup as visitors explored the Race to Riches experience.
Visitors racing the clock inside Zilby's space ship.
A look back at our very first cardboard prototype.
Our process table — showcasing the journey from early cardboard spaceship prototypes to the final experience, complete with stickers and a behind-the-scenes look at our design process.
