Day 18: Leaf Hunter Mobile Game Design Project— A thorough walk-through
From curiosity, research, content strategy, concept formation to sketches and finally to the birth of a prototype for Leaf Hunter.
TL;DR
LEAF HUNTER is a game where players destroy pattern-forming leaves in Leaf-land.
The aim of the game is for players to destroy evil leaves forming patterns all over Leaf-land.
More context and design process. Happy reading and learning :)
I love games and have always wanted to learn how to design them. During my undergraduate days I designed my first “playable” game called Ikenga ( An African warrior whose mission was to save the land by forging through the evil forest, fighting skulled-dead warriors into an unknown land. I used a game engine called Unity3D for that).
It’s something that evolved from my childhood, having played all sorts of games — from sand games to water games, brick games, the popular “terminator 2 console — ending man”, Cartridge days ( Nintendo), SEGA and not to talk of the recent platforms — PS, PSP, XBox, Wii, PC Games and the trending mobile and web games.
Sometime ago, while on a 3-month intensive UX design workshop— I had to choose a design project as I kept on improving my UX design skills. I doggedly chose to try out a game project with focus on an African theme ( not african characters or costumes ). This decision was based on the fact that I am disturbed by the poor quality of games which spring up from this region.
Before I decided on what to work on, I was curious to know what made a great game like Candy Crush successful so I asked:
What made Candy Crush a great game?
I have never been a fan of Candy Crush but many have testified that its an awesome game and more often than note, data don’t lie. (500M+ Downloads). I started researching online and offline, as well as playing the game to discover for myself, what I could learn from it.
Below are some insights I got about Candy Crush:
- Continuous feedback to users through sounds, visuals and animations.
- Scaffolding occurs on all levels to introduce each level’s objective and goal in order to complete the mission and to introduce new ways of accomplishing a task.
- Candy Crush changes its gameplay to a mission or adventure like game when you step from one level to another. This is unlike Temple Run which started by being popular but now has lost its initial awe.
- First 10 levels are very easy to complete and with more than enough guides to do things.
- Game challenges for each level is unique while still maintaining the same pattern of game play.
- It’s freemium ( great business model )
- Its complexity is concealed in the development of the game and not what users see. Just the way serious things have been hidden from car drivers/owners — just be romancing your steering et al. :)
I went further by asking the community their thoughts on games…
As I continued my research, I asked some interesting open questions and see the summarized answers below.
Asked if they can describe their experience of a named game they played recently?
And some consistent responses are:
- Felt it was a great experience
- Challenging and loved the randomness of the game
- Engrossing
- Awe-inspiring and captivating
- Fun, exciting and enjoyable
- Loved the visuals
- Addictive
What do you think keeps you playing a game over a long period of time?
They responded by saying:
- The storyline
- It has to be challenging
- There should be no adverts
- Great graphics/visuals and sound.
- Sometimes boredom causes me to keep playing
- Constant update of the game and addition of new features
- Curiosity and if the game is fun
- Trying to be mentally alert etc.
Can you describe what makes you go into an app store and select one game out of thousands?
- The preview and the screenshot to see if it is interesting
- Popularity and hearsay/referrals, ratings
- If it’s free and total number of the game has been downloaded
- Good first glance at visuals, reviews, trending games (game category)
- Perfect storyline and Animation etc.
Can you think of any great game done in Africa?
- 80% said NO to this and that they are hoping to see one. Also, some mentioned foreign games like fruit ninja , dark avenger as African games which are not.
- The remaining who mentioned “Yes”, said games like TimberMan ( not african though), Sambisa forest, Conductor, and one said “I can’t really say. But that he heard something like Babalawo game from Nigeria.” looolz, I can’t stop laughing :)
What do you think makes people disregard games done here in Africa?
- Poor Quality with a repetitive storyline
- No research, in for the money or popularity
- Assumes lots of things
- Poor and bad graphics and sound
- No maintenance and lacks constant update
- Fear of lack of downloads and huge adverts that will be placed
- Games not creative enough and most times tend to be childish
- Not fun, not intuitive enough etc.
What would you love to see in games that you have not seen yet?
No bugs, great quality, great commentary, challenging game levels, great story and concept etc.
I also had to do lots of reading online and follow-up questions with some people too.
After I analyzed the feedback from people on what made great games,
I got a game idea called Letter Hunter
Immediately the idea came, it sounded right and immediately, I thought it was one of those “Yeeees!!!, that’s it moment!! but knew the idea did not feel right.
The aim of the game was for players to destroy the growing trees in the fastest word-combination possible to save the land.
And I had great features and experiences for the game. See some of them below
- Wrongly formed words will serve as food to the growing trees and speeds up their growth to fill up the screen.
- There are ways to get extra abilities to win the growing trees:
- Collecting fruits that appear on the growing trees
- Eating special jewels on the screen that can allow you form any word of your choice by customizing dropping letters by yourself.
- Other special abilities include, some letters turning into bombs too :) yes! into bombs.
Later on, I defined my goals ( user and business needs ), explained to my mentor on the project why I considered it a great game, chose a target audience of high school and university students but something still felt wrong.
Everything seemed right at first but later on after initial sketches and early tests — the game seemed a bit confusing and “off”.
Failed sketches from the first failed idea
So what did I do after the first idea failed? I changed the game concept and came up with LEAF HUNTER but my goals and research techniques remained true
LEAF HUNTER is a game where players destroy pattern-forming leaves in Leaf-land.
The aim of the game is for players to destroy evil leaves forming patterns all over Leaf-land.
Persona! Persona!! Persona!!!
A persona is a representation of a type of customer. Personas answer the question, “Who are we designing for?” and they help to align strategy and goals to specific user groups. — UX Mastery
Insights from the Card sorting exercise
Next I went on to making a navigation system but before that, I did a card-sorting exercise to know what game players would really want — this helped me with the
- content strategy
- game navigation and
- interaction designs
Users wanted to see a play button, exit button, high-score button and “a connect with friends” option after game-launch and in the initial loading screens.
Users wanted to see in the game menu selection screen, an exit button, a music on/off button, game-in-help tutorial for beginners etc.
Users thought that “a share score across social platforms” should be placed during game transition from one level to another and also a “a try again” button.
Users wanted to see their game points and player’s health, irrespective of what else they were shown during gameplay.
Users wanted to see “a nice congratulatory message for job a well done’, game points and a high-score screen.
Incase they failed a level, users mostly wanted to see most “a try again message( not just button)” for not doing well, exit game button, game points etc.
They also wanted to see a play button, player’s health, instruction before a game starts on the instruction screen before a game starts.
Game navigation screen
After analyzing the sorted cards, I came up with a navigation screen that was consistent with what users wanted — from the card sorting exercise.
Wireframes — low-fi model for the game detailing the likely flow and interactions
Leaf hunter wireframes and user testing
So I took the wireframes to market (to users) to test with real users on what they think about the current game. This I did because their opinion will keep me honest and true as I look back at my user and business goals and the experience I want them to have while playing the game.
I got lots of feedback, some of them were revelational too:
- Game menu screen too plain
- Time-limit for pattern swipes ( a type of swipe in the game )
- Highest score swipe for multiple intersecting patterns etc
And they even became too excited and started suggesting new features too :)
- Ability to make multiple intersecting patterns
- Bonus added to leaves like 2x for a leaf to increase score of each swipe
- leafy monster destruction
- Ability for player to buy a leafy monster with leafy coins in the leafy store
- Special effects
- Streak swipe ( during time limit plays where you have to swipe faster and not miss a pattern or leaf monster) and many more.
I iterated, implemented some feedback, considered some for future iterations, as everything can’t go in now — I was staying true to a Minimum Viable Product.
The design language and character creation — sketches
Since game design is not the same as app or website design — I needed to add life and a common language to the game. So I asked lots of questions as I began to sketch.
- Where are my characters?
- How will the game play look like?
- What kind of scene should we depict?
- What emotions should we communicate?
- Should we use real characters?
- How can I put life into inanimate things if I considered using them?
- What will the logo look like?
Visual language
I made lots of iterations and kept testing to see what felt right.
Initial prototypes
Finally…I came up with all game screens and was satisfied with the result.
So what’s next for the project?
Well… I am no longer working on this project for now…It’s not perfect yet, even the visual design and strategy still seems a bit distorted and not totally great for production (personal feeling.
PS: If you are a game developer/designer who is very much interested in this idea, you may kindly let me know :)
Thank you very much for reading thus far; it shows that you are really interested in good game design and user experience.
If you enjoyed this article, please ♥♥♥♥ recommend ♥♥♥♥ to spread the love. :)
Thanks alot to Awesome Dinma and Munachi
