Crime Match
I led the development of a crime themed puzzle game. This was one of Storm8’s first attempts at having an overarching narrative theme in addition to a puzzle game. It was a lot of fun to work on, but ultimately the retention metrics weren’t there.
These 3 images represent the key parts of the game: the map, the gameboard, and the dialogue
The characters are always the fun part. We went through many iterations -trying to find a balance between CSI and Lisbeth Salander.
Characters
Through most of development she had a partner, but then his death became the first murder mystery.
Map
One of the biggest challenges visually was finding the balance between a dark crime theme and a more appealing casual game. This was especially true for the map which went through many iterations.
We decided to shroud the map in a fog which cleared away when major landmarks were unlocked.
Puzzles are still 90% of the game and we devoted a lot of time to creating an appealing crime themed gameboard and pieces. Game pieces always need to be simple and colourful - for appeal, but also so that colour blind people can play the games. We wanted to have some crime element and settled on a stylized fingerprint.
Pieces
We started out wanting something dark and futuristic and we went through several iterations. We ultimately decided on a background that reflected the different environments.
Gameboard
Credit:
Characters & Environments: Marco Kunardi
Map: Craig Kitzmann, Jonathan Glabas
Pieces: Erin Schleuppner
Frozen was an ice cream themed puzzle game. Cynically named Frozen in the hope that people would find it in the app store when they were looking for the movie Frozen
A lot of thought went into the visual development but ultimately we took a pretty conservative approach - emphasising simple and cute
Frozen
Pieces
Ice Cream offered a lot of visual possibilities for pieces. We explored and slowly worked them down to simple shapes. The puzzles in Frozen were the basis of all future storm8 puzzle mechanics
Map
We wanted to have an ice cream themed world for the map. Here is some of the exploration:
We explored a lot of different characters and ultimately settled on a penguin.
Characters
Credit:
Character Design - Sueann Friis, Christine Macternan
Pieces - Sueann Friis, Erin Schleuppner
Map - Christine Macternan, Erin Schleuppner
Dragons
One of the first mobile games I worked on was a dragons game at Zynga. It never came to fruition, but it was a great experience. These are some of the earliest dragon sketches. It was a lot of fun coming up with the different themes.
