Studio Ludo

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Recap

Alright, guys - our mobile game is officially official. Ben has gotten himself a cozy home on the coast and Louis is more than ready to start this amazing journey around the world with YOU - yes YOU! 

Within four different mini games you will explore our oceans, coral reefs and it’s marine life. Lous will provide you with very useful tips and tricks on how to to prevent plastic from reaching the ocean and how to reduce plastic use in everyday life. 

To give you a little sneak peak into the final design and gaming interface you will find a few mockups under this post to give you a first impression and hopefully make you curious to see more. To give our game a final touch, Johanna also did some sound design for the intro which is just amazing and perfectly fitting the mood of our game. Just image the sound of waves crushing in, birds flying over your head, wind in your hear, saltwater on your skin, the pure feeling of freedom - this is how our game feels like. 

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Elevator Pitch

What does the player control? 

The game is design in a first-person-view. Items which are placed on the boat, can be clicked by the player and will lead him to different mini games. Their are three mini games and with that four main actions the player can take: 

- navigate the boat through the ocean

bring together shells in a life of three or more

click on little plastic pollution 

navigate through our world map  

What would you say / write to “sell“ your game to a gamer –  player of your game?

Ben’s Blue Boat inspires with various mini games that accompany the player throughout an adventurous journey around the globe. In addition to wild boat trips, collecting shells and diving through coral reefs the player will be made aware of the plastic pollution in the sea. So come and hop on Bens Blue Boat and take a playful adventure of a lifetime.

What hook(s) does your game have? 

4 different mini games 

everyday tips on how to avoid plastic

combination of four very popular mobile games

playful and sweet illustrations

improvement of knowledge, strategical thinking and reaction

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Market Analysis

What other games are already on the market similar to your concept? How popular are they? What features do they have?

1. candy crush

App Store Rating: 4,7 | 11602 reviews

Candy crush is a very popular game across both genders and all ages. It does not have a deeper meaning to it, but is mostly a game to strengthen your strategical thinking and relax in your free time. Candy crush has unlimited levels, getting more difficult each time. The aim of the game is to match bonbons in a 3-line and use boosters in a smart way. It could also be described as a puzzle-game. 

2. Unsere Welt: Geographie lernen

App Store Rating: 4,6 | 710 reviews 

The purpose of this app is to improve your geography knowledge in a playful way. The challenge is to locate different countries on the world map. This is not as easy as it sound but really fun to play and has a really good learning effect. 

3. Subway Surfers

App Store Rating: 4,6 | 7132 reviews 

Subway surfer is one the most popular jump and run games in the industry. The adrenaline really kicks in when you are playing and trying not to bump into a train or another obstacle. It does train your reaction skills and is a nice pastime.

What unique features does our game have?

Our game is indeed a combination of these three games. The character is living on a boat, learning about plastic in the ocean while being able to choose from 4 different mini games. The mini games can be played over and over again and are strengthening different skills sets. As we know that these games are already very successful and people enjoy playing it, it is sure to say that a combination if these three is a good go. 

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Gender roles

Hello guys!

Today we’re talking gender roles. This week’s mission was to let others guess which gender we are targeting. The people we talked too are in the game design industry as well, so they do have quite some knowledge on the topic. we did present our general idea to them as well as showing our first sketches and characters. 

The aim was to find out how our game idea appears to others and see if they we have the same idea of which gender we are targeting. We did speak to a female and a male to make sure we got the opinions from both genders. 

Both gave us a pretty similar feedback which I will be analyzing in the following. 

As we use very bright colors and kind of a drawing, watercolor style in our visualizations their first guess as a target group where children. We actually did not expect this in the first place but after thinking about it it did make sense to us as our style could out of a simple animation movie for younger people. 

The second guess though was indeed what we intended, meaning females from 18-30 years old. The game also includes an advanced geography map to improve the general knowledge in this area which would not be fitting for kids. 

We are very grateful for the feedback as we are now able to improve our game concept and design for our target group even more. To make our visuals look more appealing for older people the colors are going to be a little bit more desaturated and basic.

Stay tuned for next week’s mission!

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Ben

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Storyboard

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Louis 

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General Idea

Old fisherman Ben has had many beautiful adventures with this blue boat and now it’s your turn to make even more unforgettable memories with it. After restoring it you’re taking Bens Blue Boat on a journey through all the seven seas. You’ll discover soon that the the blue beautiful sea doesn’t have the variety of species you imagined it to have and the colorful coral reefs aren’t even that colorful anymore. 

Through a series on mini games you’ll learn playfully how plastic pollution affects the oceans. Furthermore you’ll collect seashells, protect the coral reefs from microplastic. By tapping on the boat’s map you’ll be able to enhance your geographical knowledge in a fun way.

So hop on Bens Blue Boat and have an unforgettable adventure!

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Target group - personas

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Learning outcomes

As we all know plastic in the ocean is a huge environmental challenge for us as a human race. But even though we are very aware of this problem we still do not take action to find a worldwide solution.

People also always tend to blame politics, but the actions we take as an individual are of big importance and everyone can make a small change in their life and live more sustainably. 

Often people are not aware of how exactly plastic ends up in the ocean. This is through cosmetic products, laundry, cigarettes and other small items you would not think of in the first place. 

Therefore the aim of our game is to educate people on how plastic reaches the ocean and point out different ways to avoid it in everyday life. Very often people forget the small actions they could take to avoid plastic or they do not know how to in the first place. 

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Company roles

Johanna 

As the Game Producer and Manager she is responsible for organizing time-tables and setting deadlines. She makes sure that everyone sticks to the plan and keeps everyone motivated - from updating the blog to bringing all the small pieces together to a big picture. 

Nina

Our Game Artist and Modeler brings all our great ideas to life. She is responsible for visualizing characters, landscapes and the overall user interface.  Her truly extraordinary imagination and drawing skills brings important competences to our team. 

Ally

She takes the role of the Game Programmer and Designer. Her field of expertise is to depict everything as simple and logical as possible. Her laptop is her magical wand as she uses different programs to represent our vision.  

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Why Studio Ludo? “Ludo” is latin and means “I play”. It stands for having fun and spending time with amusing entertainment. We at Studio Ludo create exactly those fun game experiences - therefore Studio Ludo is not only an acoustically pleasing name, but also the perfect fit for what we stand for.