BeatPong

This project started with a simple idea and the game is now deployed and can be visited at www.beatpong.ch . In the last weeks the work was focussed on gamefeel and experience. Many hours were spent into animations, sound and visual identity of the game. This blogpost will show you what these changes include.

Timing-Feedback

The whole game mechanic is timing based. That’s why it is so important to give feedback to the user if they hit the right timing. The clearer the better. I did animations for the „good“ and the „medium“ timing.

Good Timing

Medium Timing

The timing feedback is not only visual but also auditory. I uploaded a complete walk through of the game here on YouTube where the feedback is audible.

UI

Since the beginning it was important to me to have a finished product. A very important part of every interactive medium is the usability. I designed this main menu that should introduce you into the animated and simplified aesthetics of the game.

In some way a connection between the user with the phone and the desktop needed to happen. In my opinion the best solution to this connection problem are QR-Codes. You just need to scan them and you are instantly connected.

Visuals

When it came to the game’s visual design, I very quickly settled on a stylized, cartoon-like art style. I can’t really explain why but i think it fits the game well.

Throughout the gameplay, there should be a noticeable progression over time. This is supported both visually and musically.

Music

It’s hard to talk about the music without being able to let you actually hear it. I think the best thing is to go wathch the Walk Through and hear for yourself. The idea was to really underline the progression that happens during the game. It gets faster when you reach a certain count of points. The music had to be planned very well so i had an overview of how to connect it to the gameplay. It was very important to work precisely because the music needs to be synced.

Final Words

I noticed that game design is really the discipline in design where the most different skills get combined. Since i worked alone on this project i had the opportunity to work on all these different kind of tasks. I really enjoyed doing that. I learned a lot!