Moon Hopper
Introduction
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Moon Hooper is a mobile game. I made this game during my internship at DutchGameStudio. The game was made to be used on a platform that was being created at the time. The game needed to modular, allowing other companies to swap the sprites for their own.
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It was my task to:
1. Design the whole game
2. Code the essential mechanics
3. Craft all the sprites and animations
4. Test the game with users.
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Phase 1, Designing the game
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As mentioned in the introduction, this game is made to serve as a template. The company I work for is currently in the process of making a platform where marketers can go to and make a game that suits their campaign. So it is up to me to make a game that is easy to rebrand.
So the first thing I did was make a long list. I had tons of ideas that could work well for a game within the criteria set. I then picked 8 of the long list and made a grey box version of them. I then made prototypes for all of those to test with my colleagues. I did a primary research method where I would simply let people see sequences images and let them tell me what they saw and would do. Based on their response and input I chose 1 game I would further develop.
The game that was so clear and easy to understand was the wall jump game I created. The concept was extremely simple as all you needed to do was jump from left to right and visa versa.
The trial and error phase
I then started to work in Unity to make the mechanics work. Luckily there are a ton of great tutorials on the internet and I was able to find one that covered all aspects of the game that I wanted to include. Now this phase was exceptionally interesting as I had to do a lot of work regarding making the game addicting. I discovered that when the game was almost impossible, the game became a hit! As long as the game did not feel unfair, people would keep playing it. The only downside of this was that rebranding items that "kill" you are almost impossible to re-skin.
I fixed this by changing the killable object to obstacles that could easily be re-branded. Is this game that would be the trees on the side as well as the mushroom, clouds, and tree trunk (more about this in the next paragraph).
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Backstory
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When the main attributes were done I moved on to the decorative section. In this case, I was allowed to make up my own backstory for the character. The story revolved around a squirrel who lived in the era the same as the Vikings. His dream was to reach the moon altho squirrels are unable to fly. It's about somebody who is ahead of its time!
Phase 2 - Design the game pt2
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Next on the list was the background and side panels on which the player could jump to go up. The side panels where not difficult to make but the background needs to be both interesting but also not to visual pulling as the main focus had to be on the character.
As shown in the image on the left, I chose to have a fading effect in the background. The foreground would be light as that would help the player to focus his vision on the player and its surroundings allowing him to feel the mood of the game. In the middle ground, there are a few props that give away the era in which the squirrel lives.
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The foreground props had to make for a warm camp. Here is where the squirrel lives and studies as that is his great passion. There are also some nuts on the ground as that is what he eats ( this will be important as it will come back in the UI and be used as a score).
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Phase 3, Coding the game
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It would be impossible to show how I went about coding this but I am more than happy to redirect you to itch.io where you are able and experience/play the game.
Click on one of the screens
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Phase 4, Player data
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In collaboration with one of the game devs here, I have been able to produce a plugin that can be used to track the movement of the player. Tracking this is going to give me some enormous insight into the player's behavior. You can see an example of what this would look like underneath this paragraph (apologies for the somewhat low quality).
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