Mini Chess
Overview
This project is the very first mobile game I designed for OutOfTheBit. Production started in October 2015 and the game was published by that December. My role was to take care of the overall flow of the game, as a Game Designer as well as taking care of the UI, UX, marketing material creation. It had to be polished and on the same level of other company's games that were published before my arrival in the company.
Objective
The goal of my team and I was to create a simpler version of Chess. We wanted to give people who were not familiar with the classic ancient game an opportunity to learn this easier version to, then, transition to the classic one. So instead of an 8x8 grid we designed a 6x6 one. And instead of having pieces as the bishop and the horse, we focused on only presenting the other, quicker to learn, pieces. Mainly for kids.
Process
Process Step 1: Brainstorming & Product Set Up
This one being one the first games I designed, it was really essential for me to make these few initial steps very clear and discuss it with the more experienced designers I was surrounded by. Doing things this way for this project's step made me really appreciate how a great planning can really open the gates of a safer and timeproof development. Swipe towards the right on the images above to see this phase development.
Process Step 2: Layout & Style Search
The quest I embarked on to find a nice and coherent design style for this project was a fun one. Being a simple mechanics game we had to create many themes and lots of juicy animations for the it to never feel boring and repetitive. At the same time, considering our target audience could mainly be composed by kids who haven't yet started playing chess, it had to be very clear and readable for them to understand it.
Process Step 3: Production
Once we were all happy with the direction, style and feel the project was taking, we started the production phase. This is a critical, creative and also mechanical state, where we quickly need to create many elements, all consistent and coherent with each other, for all the game's menus and sub-menus. Constant iteration and approval from the whole team is needed at this point, parallely working on the marketing.
Try It Out
