Revised Game Concept

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Revised Game Concept

This week, we received feedback from our client about our 3 pitch ideas. They were inspired by our ideas and proposed more detailed requests: the game should feature cars and should be competitive rather than cooperative.

With this feedback, we created a new a competitive car game, BattleCars. In this game, each player controls a miniature car he can use to shoot others while driving around an arena. After presenting the concept to SmileGate, we received feedback that the game should not only feature cars, but should be a racing
game with simple controls.

We got together again to create two new game concepts that have feature these characteristics, and are close to getting approval on one of them: Parallel Wind. In this competitive car racing game, each player controls a car on a racetrack. Players avoid obstacles and follow turns on the racetrack through simple swipe motions on their mobile devices. Players can also bump other cars to slow them down or—if they so choose—team up with other cars to get a temporary speed boost.

Resolved Bluetooth and WiFi Connectivity

SmileGate has requested a game played via iOS devices that are connected via Bluetooth or WIFi. The newly released iOS 6 update interferes with traditional Bluetooth/UDP connections. After significant research and testing, we have found a way to overcome this obstacle and provide both Bluetooth and WiFi
connectivity for these devices.

Next Week

  • Get final approval on game design concept
  • Create a more detailed game design document
  • Playtest our game.

 

Design, Pitch and Create!

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What a week for the team. We completed three major milestones: designing three games, creating a presentation for the client about the games, and developing the base technology for the device-to-device connectivity.

Last week, while brainstorming, the team was excited to create over 18 game ideas with different genres and game mechanics. This week we chose 3 ideas that fit best with the technology, controls and western scheme. We developed those three ideas in terms of game mechanics, aesthetics, technology, story and fun factors.

The three games were:

  1. Pirate Booty – “Conquer the high seas! Be a pirate and find the ultimate hidden treasure…before anyone else does!” Top-down view multiplayer game using iPad as game screen and multiple iPhone/iPod Touch as controller for each one’s ship. Attack each other’s ships, steal golds, upgrade your ship. Ally with your friends or sink them below the sea.
  2. Draw Anything – “Social party drawing game!” Party game using many iOS smart devices together to play drawing games with each other. It is easy and fun to play, anytime, anywhere!
  3. Space Frontier – “4 Player Galaga…coop-play with your friends!” Traditional shooting game renovated to a multiplayer game. It uses iPad as game screen and multiple iPhone/iPod Touch as controller for each one’s spaceship.

Then we needed to visualize and simplify the ideas to create a powerful presentation for our client, SmileGate. We created colorful and well defined powerpoint as well as a Youtube video that had a voice over the presentations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4XzJuRrbak&feature=youtu.be).By the end of this week, our team had created a working solid base technology for the games that we will be developing. Our programmers have developed server-client system using Bluetooth as well as different finger gesture recognition system that we can customize for inputs on all the iOS devices. Also, team branding arts are on their way so hang on tight until next week when we reveal our art!

See you next week everyone!

 

Production tools used for project management

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Our team is currently in pre-production stage where we are constantly brainstorming and iterating game design.  There are numerous documents, ideas to track and we are looking for the best practices to keep the team efficient in tracking tasks. So here is how we evolved our project managing tools.

 

 

We started with Google calendar for the first week when the only thing we had to do was to set up meeting times. It soon got too crowded with schedule blocks and we needed a board to show the tasks and issues. We decided to use Google Calendar for schedules and meetings.

 

On the second week, we tried out Trello to assign simple tasks for each other.  It worked great until we needed more professional and personalized space for people to talk about issues.

 

That’s when we started to use Jira. It’s been good so far for project managing that focuses on tracking tasks. The only flaw is that it can not assign multiple people to one task(there are ways to go around it but…) and that you can not define specific due time.

Unless we are using the physical space and objects like post its and whiteboards, we need to find the best  practices to provide the team with easy to communicate tool. The producer is trying to create a good channel for the team members to be able to do work right, faster and easier through digital devices.

Research on Market and Technology

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The team researched 3 topics:

  1. Characteristics of smart devices.
  2. Characteristics of US mobile users
  3. Characteristics of U.S. mobile gamers

We uncovered several ideas that we thought would be helpful for our project. Of particular importance were:

  • Despite popular opinion, the majority of mobile gaming is done from home, rather than while commuting (53% of mobile gaming time occurs from home). This gives us hope that our 4-player co-located game should be viable.
  • Though the U.S. Mobile user market is not growing as quickly as others (e.g. China), it still accounts for a disproportionate amount of the global market. This is the market that we’re targeting with this game.
We compiled this information and presented it to SmileGate, who was particularly interested in:
  • 57% of people who enjoy mobile games tell their friends about it.

We also wanted to get a head-start on building tools with the iPad and iPhone connectivity. One of the items we’ve obtained is Prime 31, a plug-in, allows us to
connect both of these devices, so that a swipe on the iPhone is registered on the iPad and vice-versa.

Created 3 Game Design Sketches

We met as a team and brainstormed a total of over 15 valuable game design ideas. We narrowed those down to our favorite 3. We have subdivded into pairs and have assigned a game to each pair to be further detailed and sketched. The three games are of starkly different genres: strategy, action, and party/casual; they each have unique mechanics that we feel take best advantage of the technology and communication between iPhone and iPad devices.

Next Week

We will present 3 game design concepts to SmileGate and refine whichever concept they feel has the most potential. The concept of inter-connectivity between devices is still unproven, so we need to discover what restrictions and complexity there is to the technology

Visiting Infinite Z

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Last Thursday, we had a field trip to Infinite Z, an awesome startup who is building a revolutionary, immersive, interactive 3D environment for computing, creating, communication and entertainment. Their invention “zSpace” delivers a highly realistic holographic visualization which will allow the engineers, architects and designers to work with their designs in a way not possible earlier in a 2D environment.

We had the chance to test the device by ourselves and were very excited of the intuitive control and the realistic feeling. It was like the high technology that could be only found in the movies just came true. We highly recommend everyone should have a hand on it.

 

Inspired and fired up to create an awesome game!

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Six brilliant minds have gathered at EA to create a mind blowing mobile game! They are
– Nora Bastida, Daniel Hausmann, Sun-Moon Hwang, Dan-Ah Kim, Mohan Subramanian and Xiyuan Zero Liu.

First was the orientation. We were honored to be doing a project at EA where the environment was just fascinating and perfect for developing. We set up our computers and checked them to get ready for intensive game making process. Food was great and we had diverse choice.

Our client is SmileGate which has headquarters in Korea. We used Skype to talk about the project. After carefully listening to the client to understand what they wanted, we had a meeting to decide many things from our name, identity, meeting time to brainstorming methods that we will be using. The chosen team name is ‘West-Turn’ and it means that we will be creating a ‘western’ style of game that will be familiar to North American people.

The first week went fast. A lot of things were new and we are getting used to the new space. Everyone in the team is excited and fired up for the new project. We are heading towards the second week at EA.