WACKY ALIENS

Game Design and Development

Wacky Aliens is a fun to play arcade game. It combines the the thrill of whacking the aliens with beautiful graphics. Simplicity was a key feature of the design as I wanted to create something that is visually striking as well as easy to remember. This was a freelance project where I created a game from scratch.

After I had the idea of what I want to create I started researching differnt games that were tied with a wack-a-mole type of game. Looking at the Apple Appstore, and researching the existing type of games, I gathered information on how the games are made. Majority had point systems that would monitise on player addiction as Candy Crush made a standard in how apps are monitsed. A great inspiration was Rediculous Fishin design wise. As well I was not impressed about graphics of the apps that were so I felt that I could bring something new to this type of game.

Went on making wireframes, user journeys and prototypes. I had a clear visual idea on how the aliens will pop-out of the spacescrafts and how the animations would unfold so there was no need to sketch the prototypes of these. However, the interaction and user journey had to be on paper. It was important to visualise how the user will enter from landing page and navigate troughout the app. Looking at the research I have done about the similar apps, and how they put menus together, types of interaction I had in mind to make it more fluent for the user.

With Gamesalad I started to produce the mechanics of the game, which prooved quite a challenge and tackled my mathematical skills. As well motion was important as the flow of the objects and transitios had to be flawless and interactive. With the mechanics of the game in place, I started the first test with draft imagery. I had figured out the apparent problems in terms of usability and this was the perfect opportunity with a working prototype.

With a working prototype, I have invited some of my close friends and family to try on the game. As well got the usual remarks like "is this the way is going to look" but majority of the time spent with them was to check out how they engage with the product. I took notes of what the problems they encountered. One of them was that once entered in the pause mode, they located with difficulty the x button. So I decided of making the whole area around the holder the close area as well.

With the testing giving me more knowledge, I have fixed the apparent problems and moved on to introducing the animations the final designs and the sound. With sound I had some problems as it was the first time I had to create songs from scratch.

After finishing the final touches, I have sent the app to be approved by the Apple Store. This took less then expected to be approved and caught me with the marketing off guard. Therefore I did not have enough time to make enough buzz for the launch. This was a lesson well learned and would teach me to work more across the steps in creating a product, like making the video to promote it and keep the social page interacted to give the audience something to aspect in the middle of the project.

After the launch, I have received good feedback but the most important was the negative one as from that you can understand what the user wants from your product and you can tailor it more. Feedback included Sharing and other. As well made my friends test it and stood behind them to see how they interact with it. After gathering all the feedback, I have released a second improved version with more levels and few other improvement.

The app was available on the apple store in 2014. The project took me trough user flows, animations, ui, content management, sound design, feel and more.