Josh Kleber
iPhony
iPhony is a collection of short single player puzzle games designed to parody pre-existing popular games and apps for the iPhone.
Platform: iOS
Engine: Flash Develop Actionscript 3.0
Supported Devices: iPhone 5 and up
Duration: ~4 Months
Role: Game Designer, Producer
Micro Games:
Since our app is parody-based, each of our games needed to be based off a popular app or game mechanic.
The iPhone is capable of so much, but everything is limited to a few key inputs from the user.
In order to parody this aspect of the iphone, we made sure our mini-games contained the swiping, tapping, vibrating, and gyroscope mechanics.
One of my main jobs while working on iPhony was designing new mini-games to include.
Even though each of our 25 mini-games uses the same basic iPhone mechanics, each of the mini-games has its own style and unique gameplay experience.
Our programmers established a framework that allowed for mini-games to be created quickly and efficiently. This allowed for me to prototype designs and to help speed up workflow.
Intent statement:
Our goal for iPhony was to create a parody of smartphone and social media culture; to make the game a collection of rapid mini-games in order to reflect the frantic, and fast paced nature of social media.
General Description:
iPhony is an app for the iPhone that contains mini-games that parody other iPhone apps. Players progress by earning in-game currency(iBux) via an achievement system, and new mini-games are made available in a simulated iPhone app store. Players spend their iBuxs to unlock more mini-games so that they can have the full iPhone experience. Why use other apps when you can do it all in this one?
"iPhony; It's an iPhone, for your iPhone."
Achievements:
My greatest contribution to iPhony is our Achievement Monetary System. During early production we found that our mini games were fun, but since they only lasted ~5 seconds each, they didn't offer enough replayability to play iPhony for more than a minute.
The route of this problem was that we had all of the mini-games available from the beginning and the player didn't have an incentive to keep playing after they beat all of the games. In order to fix this I created an achievement system that rewards the player for doing unorthodox things while playing the game. Not only are the achievements satisfying in themselves, but they also give the player iBux: our parody currency.
Starting the player off with 7 games, they will play them and begin to unlock achievements. These will grant them iBux which they can then spend in the in-game store to unlock new mini-games.
This cycle continues until the player has gotten all of the achievements and is happy with their total completion of the game. Of course most people won't try to unlock all of the achievements, but we have found through testing, that almost everyone will try to unlock all of the mini-games at the very least before calling it quits.
User Interface Design:
I worked closely with all of the members of my team when creating UI. The other designer and I would brainstorm what the next mini-game would be, and then we would start taking notes on what we would need to include on-screen.
I would quickly go by the programmers and give them a pitch to see if the idea was possible. If it was then I would begin to work on the document. In order to ensure all of my thoughts were conveyed correctly, I put extra detail into every description.
Once the document was done, the programmers would look at it and begin to create the shell of the game. The artists then would look at my document and know what exactly they needed to make.
Post Mortem:
I joined iPhony just as production was beginning and I was assigned the role of Producer on top of my Designer role. Our team consisted of an extremely small 6 people and I knew I would need to keep an eye on everyone: including myself, to make sure we didn't lose morale.
I spent most of my time in the first half of the semester bringing iPhony to QA testing at Champlain College and designing new mini-games. This was productive, but in heinsight I wish I had created more visual design documents for our programmers and artists. My dual roles on the team made it hard for me to choose what to spend my time on, and I definitely have learned the importance of these choices.
One of the hardest parts of production was discussing with our Lead Designer the implementation of a difficulty level system. We all knew that it would make the game even better if we could implement it correctly, but there wasn't enough time and it was way out of scope. In order to ensure we got everything that was absolutely necessary in the game on time, I had to make some tough calls on what we could keep in the game or not. Acting as a producer; keeping an eye on when milestones are due and when deadlines are, drastically improved my sense of scope over the last few months.