Overview
Mobile gaming is a massive market, at the time the initiative was launched it was a $30 billion+ a year industry. As a company trying to diversify it's digital footprint Sinclair Digital asked a group of designers and developers internally to research, explore and pitch a series of mobile games as an entry point into that market.
Additionally this was a seen as a way not only create original game titles, but to monetized these games by advertising and marketing through Sinclair Broadcast channels.
My Role
Lead designer as part of a team of designers and developers handing market research, creating concepts, visuals and UX designs and flows for mobile games.
Process
As we began our exploration we started by compiling a series of loose concepts through a broad range brainstorming activities, this included things like word association exercises, new spins on popular competitors, and most successfully a mash up activity where we wrote out every game we could think of on post it notes and then grabbing two at random to see if we could mash them into a new concept.
Based on complexity, development time, budget and overall feasibility we initially narrowed ourselves down to 13 concepts.
Once narrowed to the 13 we decided to get outside of our own heads and personal attachment to specific concepts we shared our list with a larger group of internal Sinclair Digital employees to ultimate to five concepts to further develop with more research and high fidelity comps. As lead on the project and the individual with more illustrative expererience I took on three of the concepts myself to explore further.
Spellosion
Concept
Spellosion was created as a result of the mash up exercise as a combination of Scrabble and Donkey Kong, specifically in this instance the barrel cannon levels of the Donkey Kong Country series.
In Spellosion players launch their character ball to collect letters and spell words. Compete against freinds, the computer or just try to beat your high score through a range of worlds and levels.
Character Balls
Users start with one character ball and can unlock new characters by completing levels or via microtransactions. Each ball brings with it not only a a new visual but also unique character powers, use the extra heavy Big Blue to crash through obstacles, zip through walls with Spooks and spin out your webs with Spinsly.
Worlds
Explore new word filled words and levels from The Jungle to Deep Sea to the Dead Zone.
Keep The Game Going
Run out of balls and need to finish that level or beat that score? No problem you can purchase additional shots. In addition to advertisements and buying character balls this introduces and additonal revenue stream to the game.
Application Map
Dino Joust
Concept
Dino Joust was a idea that I threw out as something that just seemed too weird but then became too engrossing to ignore.
Dino Joust is a combination of a training/resource management game and a twitch based quick time event game. Train your dinosaur, raise it's stats and upgrade your gear before the next big joust.
The Stables
In the stables complete mini games and buy enhancements and unlockables to improve your stats and steed. Spend some time researching your opponents. Careful though joust day is coming and when it does you'll have to compete weather you're ready or not.
Joust Day
On Joust day race down the field towards your opponent dodging tar pit and meteors before confronting them and tapping on quickly disapearing weak spots to knock them off their steed.
A Stranger Approaches
Encounter other character who want to help you out and offer you their assistance, services or gear, but what out because everything comes at a price.
Unlock New Dinosaurs
Utilizing in game currency you collect from winning your jousts unlock an ever growing stable of new mounts. From the noble Stegosaurus to the might Tyrannosaurus pick your favorite or most powerful. Feeling impatient? Real currency can be used to unlock the dinosuar you've had your eye on right now.
Application Map
Trivia Racer
Concept
One of the request from our stakeholders was to explore a trivia game, specifically because there was a belief that this would be an easy genre to create a game quickly and easily as an "easy win" to prove that a game was both something that we were capable of producing and quickly get to market.
Not content to just make a simple trivia game we looked to combine the board game format with something a little more excited and action based, that of racing.
Race Around the Track
Race against a friend of the computer around the track by answering trivia questions. Choose the level of difficulty of your question to determine how many space your car will move (easy 1, medium 2, hard 3 spaces), completing laps. After a set number of laps the game will be over so try to cross the finish line before your opponent.
Questions
Answer questions from a broad range of categories including History, Science, Pop Culture, Current Events and more.
We were even asked to explore if we would be able to tie this into Sinclair's news properties and bring in local news questions and serve these to players via geo-targeting.
Race Against Your Friends
Manage multiple races against your friends, this way there's no need to slow down the action while waiting for your friends to answer their questions.
Premium Power-Ups
In game purchases allow players to have an edge in their race and creates an additional revenue source for Sinclair.