Paper prototyping conclusions and recap on session 1

The second session is over and a lot of new good information has come to light. But before we dig deeper into this session, let's go back to session one first!

Session 1

First we talked about things that we really wanted to have in the game. A dinosaur was quickly mentioned. Then after writing down some key concepts, we started on discussing some cool and fun concepts a casual game really needs. Highscores and leaderboards (and later maybe achievements) seemed like a good way to keep people playing.

The next thing we did, was writing down just anything that came to mind when we thought about casual games: existing games, play-types, features, concepts, ... . A game called Feeding Frenzy was mentioned. In this game you are a fish and you need to eat other things to grow bigger. This was a feature we liked and we considered using it in a dinosaur themed game.

So two big things were already pretty much decided after 2 hours of brainstorming: We want a dinosaur and we want it to grow. We didn't just want to make a copy of Feeding Frenzy, so we still had to find a new and fun way to let our dinosaur move around. We first played a little with the idea to make a Super-Mario-platformer-type game, but we weren't really convinced. Another concept came from the game Audiosurf. In this game the player hovers over a road, split into different lanes. While the player moves forward, he has to switch lanes to catch coloured blocks that appear in front of him, and dodge the grey ones. We agreed that we would take this concept and turn it into a side-scroller with growing dinosaurs.

So the game was born!! Next came the feedback from other students.

A couple of useful ideas were given. Among them was the concept of evolution (evolving from a small raptor all the way to a big T. rex as you feed your way to the top). The idea of putting a top hat on our dinosaur also came from another student. They also mentioned a few things that we needed to pay attention to, like making sure our game has enough 'replayability' and making sure our game doesn't resemble Feeding Frenzy too much.

As you probably guessed, we used the top hat idea and the dino top hat game was born!

Session 2

In session 2 the game idea was clear and we could start designing all our different screens and transitions. Naturally, we designed the start screen first. Immediately a few problems rose: "How many buttons should we use?", "Should we use icons or buttons with text?",... . Buttons with text won the fight and we chose to have 5 buttons: Play, Highscores, settings, about and exit. Nice, we have our first screen!

Start screen

Since we wanted the game to have levels with each their own highscores, a new problem found its way in. A few levels might not be enough to keep players entertained for too long. So a new screen "Mode" was made. The Mode screen had 2 buttons, "Story" and "Endless". In story mode the player can play through small levels and learn why the dino has a top hat. In endless the player can play for as long as he can survive, with the difficulty increasing all the time.

Mode select screen

When selecting story mode, the player will get a screen with all the levels. Each level would have a little story about our dino and why he is wearing a top hat. The difficulty would also rise with each level. Selecting endless mode would immediately start the game on an easy difficulty and increase it every few minutes.

Level select screen

A game should in our opinion have a tutorial which explains the basic rules. When selecting "play" for the first time, a pop-up screen will ask the player if he wants to play the tutorial. The tutorial will also be available as the first level in story mode. In the tutorial small instructions in the form of text bubbles will explain the mechanics of the game. We estimate the tutorial to only take about 1 minute.

Game screen

We continued by making the screens for the other buttons on the start screen. On the highscores screen, the player will see his name and his score for the selected game mode (endless or one of the story levels). At the top the player can switch through the game mode and see his 5 best scores for that mode. On the settings screen, the player can adjust the music volume and sound effect volume.
On the about screen, the player can read a little funny text about the game, told by a dino with a top hat. The exit button would just exit the game.

High scores screen

Settings screen

About screen

After all buttons and screens were made, it was time for testing!