This diary tells the story of how we are trying to make our first videogame. We are not expert in doing that, we have never done it before and we don’t know what will happen in the next future. It’s an experiment we want to share with you and we think could be interesting, either it turns out a success or a failure.
Previous Episode: How to find the perfect 3D model for your videogame.
Ok, everything is in place. Now: how to throw the marbles?
It's been some time since the beginning of this project.
The 3D model is now working and well integrated with Unity. It needs some more adjustment but we are along the right lines.
It’s now time to think about the gameplay. We benefit from the fact that we have choose to digitally revive an existing game. We don’t need to invent the game mechanics — at least not now — and all the game design has already be done in the fabulous ‘80s.
The only interaction we need to choose it’s the way the player moves the marbles from one trap to the other.
For those of you who never played Tricky Traps back in the days: the little ball its thrown on the traps by the pressure of the button located in the lower part of the game case. The aim of the game is reaching the lower area jumping over all the traps.
After a first phase of evaluation, in which we have discarded some mighty but complicated ideas, the choice was limited to four solutions. I’d like to show you those options since it’s been a thoughtful decision.
1. Push and release
This first method it’s the one who seemed to us as the most logical one: push the button. The longer you keep the screen tapped, the lower force is applied to the ball. If you briefly touch the screen the ball will fly to the sky.
It looked completely natural to us. In real-life a powerful shot matches with a fast hit of the button. It turned-out to be very counterintuitive.
2. Push and release — opposite version
We decided to go the opposite way. As long as you keep the finger on the screen as much power you give to the sphere. The feeling is quite good. The weakness of this method is that it’s hard to control the power of the ball and it probably needs a visual feedback to get better. Not perfect but could be a good starting point.
3. Swipe
At this time we thought we could try something completely different: why not swiping? That could give depth to the game and new variable to the game: the direction of the ball.
Swiping the finger on the screen it moves on the right or the left side. Moving it too much and the ball it thrown in that direction, and out of its rail: ball lost.
It’s a good idea but it lacks in two points: it’s very far from the original interaction of the game and it adds too much complexity to the game. It’s really frustrating. Actually more than Flappy Bird.
4. Lever-pull
We choose to step back and set aside the idea to give a direction to the ball. Back to brainstorming.
We got inspired by a classic from the ’80s: the pinball. We added a load bar that works as a lever and acts as a spring. The lever is used to set the amount of power of the launch. This permits to control both the power you give to the sphere and the timing of the release.
Unfortunately, after the first few matches, we realized that we easily memorized the lever force for each trap. That means that the force mechanic part of the game is not challenging anymore. The only interesting part left was throwing the balls with the correct timing.
Which one can work the best?
After a lot of interaction with all the four methods we were stuck and unable to pick one to move on with. We therefore decided to build a little experiment.
MaxFrax prepared a demo version without any interaction to throw the ball. The sphere was going to the first trap and that was it. We distributed this demo version to our co-workers as a test. All of them tried repeatedly to push on the button with short taps until they realized nothing was happening.
We learned that the most intuitive way to make te game works is a simple tap on the “push” button. But how to calibrate the power of the push? There’s no need to do it: no one was looking for that option. That’s why we removed that possibility.
The experiment worked out!
We understood that the Tricky Traps videogame has to be immediate, funny, and as not too much frustrating. This means giving to the player the opportunity to reach the goal.
Lastly, a simple tap seamed to be the most similar interaction to the original one.
So here we go with the final method:
5. Award winning method: tap!
To play with our digital version of Tricky Traps you just tap on the screen, no matter how long, the power is preset. The game is now based on the tap timing, and that’s it. Sounds quite simple, but believe me: it’s not.
Bringing all the five spheres at the end of the trail it’s rather difficult, but it won’t be the only goal. There will be a scoring system and we will see it together along the road.
After a long consideration, the launch method has been selected. That doesn’t mean that if someone of you think to have a better way to interact with the marbles of the game we won’t listen to him. Amaze us with something super, we will be grateful!
Now we have a working 3D model, a good and balanced method to throw the balls. The next steps will be:
- improve the lighting system, the textures and, in wider terms, the look of the game
- introduce a score system
- design the screens graphics
- add music and sound fx
- put everything together and test it
For the next story we will leave the developing process to explore the magical world of the marketing. It’s now time to show our project to a wider audience, to collect contacts of interest people and create the social profiles. Moreover we have to think about the launch of the app and how to market the game. We want to be prepared when the game will be ready!
Up Next: Let’s try to get famous!
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