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 I knew that a lot of work will be needed, so I had to find a way to earn some money.

Some thoughts:

  • The concept needs to be “open”. First we work on the “animal” concept, but why not the same game with princess? Or Dinosaur / Insect? Maybe historical aspect (Egyptian, Roman)?
  • Separating animals in different worlds (Farm animals, Animals of Africa, Asia…) allow us to sell them with In-App purchase when they are ready.
    If a child like the game, he will want other worlds to discover new animals.
  • Maximizing public: Iphone is an adult device. Children don’t have directly access to the game so it needs to please the parents. And we have to make a game for a wider public (2 to 8 years), so to make a real game with rewards and extra features.

So we first thought about fun games that may be integrated: find animals, memory games, “simon” sound games, riddles, jigsaw puzzles…

I noticed my kids don’t play for a long time to videogames: they play 5 minutes then want to play another game. How to make a game more attractive for them? We then planned to integrate rewards (Bobble Head cards), camera and albums.

thumb_activities Our last thought was the printable booklet: I know my girls won’t play for hours to the game, but they will play for hours with “real things” like booklets. And they like activities like fold, cut and paste! So the idea to print card or photo album on an A4 page seems a good way to extend the lifetime of the game.

And it really does, see this photo took in train during our last holidays!


Finally, here is the concept:

  • [game step 1]: find animals with Bobble Head card as reward (included in the Album as an extra feature)
  • [reward 1]: win a camera to take photos (included in the Album as an extra feature)
  • [game step 2]: Touch animals on a time based step
  • [game step 3]: Find animal in the dark by listening their sound (with the help of a light otherwise it’s too hard)
  • [reward]: camera can make puzzle

To encourage playing again, a world contains distinct landscapes with different animals. Printable features are unlocked when all animals are found (or photo album contains 12 photos).

One more thing: we wanted to make a game for children: this means that all instructions need to be spoken and help must be present during all the game (so a mascot was created to explain interface or to say “look for the pig…”).

The concept of the game was not defined in one day: we introduced gameplay elements one by one during development and test, as our skills on objective-c and cocos2d grew.