AI Corp

Learning goal

Show how AI works and what it actually does, along with some of the risks it brings. The material is carried by a workplace fiction: what marks a system as intelligent (perception and communication), the first examples in the chatbot ELIZA and the robot Shakey in 1966, how a traditional program following fixed instructions differs from a model that learns, what training data is and why its quality matters, where AI already sits inside everyday consumer apps, and what the Turing test measures.

My role

• Handled its logic, mechanics, scene transitions and balancing, the same part I had on the other lessons. The others took the text and the 2D and 3D art.
• Built the five-colour keycard progression as the spine of the lesson: colour-matched door terminals as the locks, the Cards panel as the completion tracker, and the order the building opens in as the pacing of the tour.
• Built the robot-part collection: four pickups hidden around the building feed a Head / Body / Arms / Legs checklist that pays off in an assembled android, so the reward is an object and not a score.
• Wrote the quiz flow: two answer layouts over one shared question header, and validation that raises a Wrong, try again notice and leaves the question open, so nothing in the lesson can be failed.
• Built the two puzzles outside the dialogue system (the wall grid of glowing tiles painted from six colour cubes, and the numpad at the wheel-locked vault door in the server basement) and wired each block of curriculum text to a prop that motivates it: the history painting, the Binoculars trained on a hospital across the city, the server rack for training data.

Systems I designed

• A five-colour keycard progression that forms the spine of the lesson: the Cards HUD panel is the completion tracker, colour-matched door terminals are the locks, and the pacing of the tour follows the order the building opens in.
• A robot-part collection system feeding a four-slot Head / Body / Arms / Legs checklist that resolves into an assembled character rather than a score.
• A dialogue system with speaker portrait medallions (tutor avatar, receptionist, colleague, Boss Adam, RoboBox), a CONTINUE / DONE advance button, a circular repeat button for replaying a line and an X to dismiss.
• A quiz system with two presentation modes over one shared question header and answer-click flow: a vertical numbered 1 / 2 / 3 list for the everyday office problems, and a horizontal A / B / C panel reserved for the higher-stakes Turing-test check.
• Non-punishing answer validation: a wrong pick raises a corner Wrong, try again banner and leaves the question open instead of triggering a fail state.
• Interactable exposition objects that pair a block of curriculum text with a prop that motivates it — the history painting, the Binoculars onto a real destination in the skyline, the server rack for training data, the desk Computer for rule-based programming.
• Two distinct lock types kept visually separate: diegetic card-reader wall panels tinted to the colour they want on the office floors, and a numpad beside a wheel-locked vault door down in the server basement.
• Objective delivery from a recurring on-screen tutor avatar, from the opening directive to reach the reception desk on the 37th floor, through the hint that robotic parts are hidden in the rooms, to the closing sign-off.

Core mechanics

• Third-person walk-and-explore navigation across a multi-room office floor, with a jump used to climb desks, cabinets and ledges — the office furniture doubles as platforming geometry.
• Proximity interaction on named world objects, where the label carries both the object name and its verb next to a mouse glyph — Computer, Binoculars, Numpad / Use, AI / Talk, Enter.
• Keycard collection: five coloured cards — green, blue, purple, yellow and red — found around the building, each gaining a green tick in the Cards panel.
• Card-scanner doors: a wall-mounted reader beside a coloured door shows Door Terminal / Scan the Card with a card icon tinted to the colour it is asking for.
• Robot-part pickups staged around the world — one sits in a lit glass display case in the lounge — tracked as Head, Body, Arms and Legs.
• Multiple-choice dialogue quizzes answered by clicking an option, in two layouts: three numbered answers from a colleague, and a lettered A / B / C panel from Boss Adam.
• Retry-on-wrong answering — an incorrect pick surfaces a Wrong, try again notice with an info icon docked to the question header, and the question stays open.
• Two puzzles outside the dialogue system: a wall grid of glowing tiles painted by picking one of six colour cubes from a swatch tray, and a numpad standing beside a wheel-locked vault door in the server basement.

Tracked values

• Five colour keycards — green, blue, purple, yellow, red — stacked as swatches in the Cards panel top-left, each gaining a green tick as it is collected.
• Four robot parts — Head, Body, Arms, Legs — listed vertically in the Robot Parts panel top-right with per-item ticks.
• Quiz answer state, surfaced as the open question plus the Wrong, try again retry notice — no score, attempt counter or penalty is shown alongside it.

Example events

• The opening brief outside the building, delivered by the tutor avatar: "You are about to enter AI Corp. Now, head to the reception desk on the 37th floor."
• A Picture of AI History in the storage area — the exposition beat that ties perception and communication to the chatbot ELIZA and the robot Shakey, "created in 1966".
• The colleague's run of office-fault questions — a printer out of paper, dying office flowers, a broken chair wheel — where a wrong pick brings up Wrong, try again and the question is left standing.
• Using the Binoculars on the terrace to frame a hospital across the city while the text explains AI in mobile apps "recommending a doctor based on a quiz".
• Boss Adam putting the Turing-test question up on the A / B / C panel, with "Torpedo test" and "Tulling test" as near-miss distractors and both HUD trackers already full behind him.
• The assembled RoboBox android standing in the assembly bay with every card and every part ticked: a joke on the Talk prompt — "Why are robots never afraid? They have nerves of steel." — and then the closing line, "And that is it from AI Corp."