Joy is a multidisciplinary artist and designer specializing in visual, experiential, and motion design within music, art, fashion, and culture.
♡ Enjoys—
Charming disproportions, meticulous curation, rabbit holes, transparent gadgets, tropical plants
♫ Listening to—
King Krule, The Sundays, Nourished By Time, Winter, The Durutti Column, Pink Siifu, rusowsky, Tia Corine, Brian Eno, I Am Ghost
✧ Currently—
Practicing boxing combos, reading Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, making pudding
Available for commissions and collaborations.
✎ For project inquiries, please email hello@joyzeng.online
EDGE Best in Show
EDGE Crowd Favorite
WXXI NPR news coverage
13WHAM ABC news coverage
Fox Roc news coverage
720+
users played Path Pursuit
600+
spectators watched Path Pursuit
8 hr
live exhibition at Imagine RIT
$2400
received in awards and scholarships
A collaboration with The Strong National Museum of Play
In 2027, The Strong plans to launch their "Beyond The Buzzer" exhibit: a new interactive showcase about the history of game shows.
The Strong challenged us to create a unique game show experience for their upcoming exhibit that accurately conveys the excitement and nostalgia of past and present games shows
After a preliminary research and ideation phase, our team developed three different ideas derived from popular game show categories. We pitched our three concepts to representatives of The Strong and they selected our idea, Path Pursuit, a physical challenge game show experience to develop further.
What exactly is The Strong?
Located in Rochester, NY, The Strong is home to the largest, most comprehensive collection of toys, dolls, games, and video games—serving children and families with thousands of highly interactive exhibits, programs, and material.
1mil+
annual visitors
6-80
target age range
540,000
collection size
Interactive Play as a Learning Tool
Learning is most effective when it is coupled with active experience.
Historical Preservation and Immersion
Keeping the integrity of historical information and experience is crucial for most accurate visitor understanding.
Accessibility and Inclusivity
Visitors from a large variety of ages, heights, and background should be able to engage with exhibits.
RFID Incorporation
The Strong aims to integrate RFID technology into more exhibits allowing visitors to track earned points.
<5 Minute
Short-form gameplay allows as many users as possible to cycle through the experience.
Intuitive Gameplay
The game should be quick and easy to grasp for a wide range of visitors.
Adaptive Difficulties
Include varied levels of play to serve visitors of different ages and experience levels.
Host Integration
Create a host that guides users and bring life to the game.
Beyond a Screen
Tangible, physical interaction is key and should not just be information on a screen.
What makes physical game shows so entertaining to watch?
I worked within a smaller team that conceptualized the foundation of Path Pursuit before our client pitch. Our team examined many notable physical game shows to better understand specific qualities that make this category of entertainment so enticing for viewers and competitors alike.
Hole In The Wall
Comedic task completion
Wireloop game
Tactile challenge with tactile feedback
Fort Boyard’s Chopsticks
Collaborative object manipulation
Lighthearted Fun
Users should be able to laugh at themselves and others. Physical game shows are often fun to watch because of how absurd and easy the challenges seem. Prioritizing playfulness instead of challenge will also help to ease more frustrating difficulties.
Experiential Novelty
The experience should offer a new way of understanding historical game shows, while staying true to their themes. Our concept of separating two players physically created some interesting opportunities to create a non-traditional digital barrier.
Demographic Versatility
Guests of all ages/heights should be able to physically interact with the experience. Physical game shows can be physically intense and fast paced so we wanted to ensure our game show didn't require users to exert significant physical effort to perform well and have fun.
A light-action obstacle course that tests collaboration and communication
Path Pursuit started as a concept heavily rooted in physical game play with competitors working together to guide a digital token along a wall projected path. As we developed the idea, we saw an opportunity to merge physical interaction with immersive digital elements.
Path Pursuit eventually evolved into a hybrid experience, giving us the best of both worlds. We had physical controllers and real-time teamwork, enhanced by digital display, bold user interface, and reactive obstacle gameplay.
Developing a design language and a mood board
Silly
Users should walk away with a smile whether they successfully complete the challenge or not.
Friendly
Graphics should be welcoming and non-intimidating.
Loud
Visuals should match the rowdy, unserious nature of the experience.
Readable
Shape language should maintain personality while communicating critical information.
Creating our captivating host: Bam Bastic
I created the first version of our host for Path Pursuit. I started by identifying common game show host personalities that would complement our game play experience while also keeping in mind potential functional jobs for the host within the game play flow.
Charismatic
High energy, enthusiastic and should make user feel comfortable
Amused
A child-like personality that loves to point and laugh at everything.
Encouraging
Warm and reassuring when users are having difficulties.
Two other designers and I then got to work on updating our mascot. We came together with vectorized versions for how we envisioned Bam. Then, we took pieces from each designer's rendition and frankenstein-ed parts and proportions from each of our designs together into what became our finalized host.
A logo that pops, but also meshes with experience environment
I designed the original Path Pursuit logo to emulate the lines of a path and interact with itself. The logo was then refined within our team of visual designers. We added arrows to create a sense of directionality within the logo so it would be easier to differentiate the two words present.
Building an exciting and dynamic game environment
For the environment, I defined different categories of obstacles and their necessary positioning to figure out the the optimal perspective for the game environment. This also clarified which obstacles be the simplest to implement. Our team drew inspiration from Fall Guys, an online multiplayer party royale obstacle course game.
A few of our designers got to work on the visual game environment. We wanted the environment to evoke similarities to one of our primary inspirations, Wipeout—with dynamic interactive elements moving in and out of frame.
Although a lot of earlier iterations included dynamic foreground elements, the designers ended up flattening the background layers of the evironment to enhance the game's readability.
A user experience centered around three functional pillars
The prevailing commonalities among the most useful reading applications ultimately boil down to three main categories: cataloging/documenting reads, exploring new material, and examining personal progress.
The primary user flow was designed around these three pillars. Below is an explanation of each navigation tab in the user interface, as well as a simplified work flow detailing the main interaction points for users.
A day full of exciting play, bubbling energy, and live adjustments
Path Pursuit made its debut at Imagine RIT 2025, where it was enjoyed by 720+ visitors of all ages. Throughout the 8 hour exhibit, our development team actively gathered player feedback and made live adjustments to the game’s difficulty levels to enhance the experience in real time.
Our team members also directly engagement with participants, offering guidance, encouragement, and insight into the game’s design and development process.
Information Hierarchy
Working on Path Pursuit was an incredible experience that
Special thanks to my amazing team!
Kamy Bitely
Alexa Contreras
JamieLynn Gallagher
Drew Genel
Liana Grosser
Ata Noor
Lily Rice
Claudia Sanchez
Leah Torregiano
Nick Will
