Curvy Snake
Design
Design Process
The design process was threw multiple stages, each stage in the project was revolutionary modeled to increase efficiency of single developer workflow.
Imagination Is the first step towards building anything, this was specially true in this project.
Prof of Concept was built and created to check how different variables would interact with each other and with graphics, this allowed for the testing of multiple solutions to reach optimal graphics and code combinations.
Demo was created to test the look and feel of the project and to further test the graphics and code interactions with more attention to detail, as well as fine tuning of the variables to accommodate the game difficulty.
Revolutions each revolution carried set of graphics, functions and features to the project, as added benefit these components ware separated and can be removed, updated and maintained with minimum effort.
Simple Gameplay
Keep it stupid simple (KISS) is arguably great design philosophy to make games, keeping player interactions to something minimum like tap is a good way to follow the KISS principle, which in turn improves the learning curve of the game and minimizes the time needed to start playing.
Player Psychology
User experience and psychology are taken into consideration throughout the revolutions of the project, insuring that number of psychological needs of end user are met with each revolution.
Focus Demanding the users focus is greatly required throughout the playing time of the player, once the focus is lost the player usually loses rewards or the that game altogether, this insures that the player must have his/her focus on the game at all times to avoid facing penalty of score loss or game loss.
Challenging And Rewarding the game balances between challenge and reward by creating a balance between hardness of the game and rewards collected, this is achieved via having multiple goals and rewards which allow users to pick between best combinations of challenge and reward by their in game character situations in each gameplay.
The challenge is to collect maximum candy balloons and pass the walls at same time which is tricky and focus demanding because the user must think few seconds ahead of snake potential paths, the few second ahead thinking is the only way to not lose the game as the character is set on predetermined course by the user, the inability to change course creates frustration and self blame which forces the player to replay and predict better from himself, as practice makes perfect.
Rewards are created based on psychological research and statistics of players loving games with candy that remind them of their childhood, in general humans associate good memories with candy and balloons, as this game reminds them of that memories in subliminal way and reinforces this past experiences with graphics, sounds and interactions.
Goals And Targets goals in the game are divided into three categories:
Short Term Goals:
Dont hit the walls
Move forward
Collect candy
Collect balloons
Medium Term Goals:
Collect enough candy for a new snake
Get better score then last game
Reach new colors and shapes
Get higher score then a friend
Long Term Goals:
Get achievements done
Own all snakes
Get highest scores in leader board
Colors
Colors used in this game focuses on visual excitation's and visual softness to add to the smoothness and user experience.
Change In Colors to combat today's short user attention spam and easy boredom number of objects.
Color Meaning colors the game which adds more meaning to the object for example "Purple Candy" ads is worth 8 "Orange Candy"is worth 1 which is more common, Player gets more "Purple Candy" as he progresses in the game.
Color To Add Beauty changing colors throughout the game-play and changing shapes give the game special unique look and eliminates repetition feeling to give illusion of progress.
Character Design
100+ Unique Characters in the game which creates vibrant options for every player including sports, flags, inventions and many others, having so many options makes great collectibles in the game, which in turn insures the return of players to the game to play more and unlock more.
Characters For All Players allowing the game to cover more demographics with the variety of options, this covers all ages, both genders and most countries especially those with high ECPM "effective cost per thousand impressions" or large populations such as China.
Character Design was taken very seriously and long cycle of character selection design and implementation began with the four questions in mind: why to do this character?, who is the target audience/player?, where does this player live?, what is players cultural background?, what is special about this character? and how will this character be created?. these questions created a list of designed characters list, with a character for almost everyone that might be interested in playing the game.
Well Designed Characters for example: the football character:
Why to do this character? to cover huge demographics.
Who is the target player? everybody interested in football.
Where does this player live? anywhere in the globe.
What is players cultural background? its all cultures combined and wont offend any group.
What is special about this character? top 4 football clubs are covered based on statistics by making the animation outfits close to their real counterparts.
How will this character be created? this character must not be the first in a row due to collider physics being static shape so football must be added to make the first in line shape.
Animations
Animations are added to reduce the static feeling of the game and to make it feel more lively and vibrant.
Realistic Animation the animations give it special feeling of quality for the end user.
These realistic animations are made based on intensive movement study of the target movement in real life, for example:
Hockey Animation is designed after studying slow motion videos on youtube on how hockey skater skates on ice after full acceleration, by studying angle of feet at any given delta time very realistic animation of hockey skater is made. <click here to watch the video>
Ant Animation is created after studying slow motion videos of ant from youtube and other sources, this made sure the movement is as realistic as possible with maintaining playable visual effects and functionality. <click here to watch the video>
User Interface Animations
Smoothness soft on the eye animations are added to the game to please the gamer and allow for good interaction, these animations add to the over all look and feel of the game.
Sound Effects
Sounds are custom created for the game, these custom designed sounds are how players imagine the game should sound like, like in a casino these sounds give sense of achievement once a successful actions are triggered.
Sound effects also give feedback to the player, to determine if certain event is triggered. In case of taps for example the sound effect volume gives feed back, the longer the user remains without a tap the higher is the volume of next tap feedback sound, which helps player to understand his tapping interval and improve his intuition.
For Further Questions And Details Contact Me:
Email : Murad.dasi AT gmail.com | Tel : +962 - 770 - 341 - Seven Three Six