Overview
I'm taking an in-depth look at the development process for Tick Tock Toys. There are a number of questions that get raised along the way, many of which I'm intending to pose to team leader Sophia George.
"Tick Tock Toys is a 3D puzzle/maze game which takes place inside a cluttered toy box. Your aim is to alter the position of the objects inside to clear a path for the clockwork robot to reach his frisbee goal.The final commercial game is available for iPad & iPhone, has 15 free levels and a further 105 IAP (in-app-purchase) levels, with themed toyboxes and iCloud support.
All of the objects are there to be played with; some will help you solve your puzzle while others will hinder you. As you play, these toys form an orchestra to aid and accompany you.
As an iPad game there is an emphasis on tactile exploration and the freedom of 'pick up and play'. The levels are short but vary in difficulty, layering the central mechanics to create a complex maze which may take longer to solve."
Personnel
The development team was brought together for the Dare to be Digital competition:
- Sophia George -- designer, 3D artist, animation/rigging & textures
- Kristian Francis -- 3D artist & level designer
- Rosie Ball -- lead 2D artist (concept, logos, promotional & motion graphics)
- Calum ("Cam") Minuti-Goold -- lead audio
- Mark Bamford -- lead programmer
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| Dare team: (left -to-right) Mark, Calum, Rosie, Sophia & Kristian |
After completing the Dare project, Rosie gained an internship & design position at Disney Interactive, working remotely for a while. Sophia, Kristian & Cam went on to do the MProf in Games Development at Abertay University in Dundee; Mark completed his BSc in Computer Games Technology at Abertay. Development continued, "every weekend from September to Christmas working on our game in Cam's bedroom" in preparation for the final BAFTA decision.
After graduation, with help from Abertay's game development prototype fund, Swallowtail was set up as a proper limited company in June 2012 -- with the aim of releasing the commercial game in January 2013 -- and the team gained two new members to replace Rosie: a programmer from the MProf course and an artist from Norwich.
- John Cooper -- programmer (metrics, gameplay, UI, shaders & animation)
- Kaliegh Branham -- artist
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| Production team: (left-to-right) John, Kristian, Sophia, Calum & Mark |
The commercial game was finally released in February 2013 and Sophia & Kristian have continued at Swallowtail, trying to kick-start other projects. Cam is now a developer for 8Dio Audio; Mark has moved on to a junior programmer role at Tag Games in Dundee.
Project Management
The game was built using the Unity game engine, which the Dare team found "easy to pick up" (-- precisely the same reason that I use it when teaching game design, rather than UDK --) and followed a strict process:
"Every day we'd have a morning meeting to split the work up. We'd run weekly timetables to keep everything on schedule, but often found ourselves finishing the tasks mid-week."It's interesting examining the Dare to be Digital diaries, interviews and videos produced by the team, which give a rare insight into the whole process. Here's a summary of selected weeks:
WEEK 1: KEY ASSETS & TRIAL LEVEL. Producing 3D models and initial animations; integration of mechanics and testing object dragging & tilt control on iPad.
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| An early level implementation. Note how the camera is positioned dead overhead. |
The team explain that they worked with a "scale chart" (not sure what they mean here -- presumably a map of how challenges ramp up as levels progress; must find out!) to help with level design, programming & concept music. The work was successful, leaving time to polish mechanics and experiment with camera position. (Note: I'm very interested to find out why they settled on the final camera position)
WEEK 2: ANIMATION, MENU & POLISHING. Further music work along with foley sound effects recording; building the menu and polishing gameplay. Character rigging for animation.
At this stage the team feel that everything is going well, and on schedule.
WEEK 4: AESTHETICS. Improve appearance; integrate sound into the build; produce a mini-trailer; initial particle effects.
The team started well: spent an entire day playing with lighting & shadows, but ran into technical snags, such as effects which weren't supported properly on the iPad, and stuff that lowered the frame rate significantly. (The frame rate issue has cropped up on the iTunes customer review page for the final commercial version, so I'm guessing that the game still runs close to the limit of what the hardware will handle.) However, the overall progress was seen as significant.
WEEK 7: FURTHER LEVELS. Getting further levels done. Japanese level working but no loading screen yet; replacing placeholder characters. Some things just take time: it took Rosie "a whole day to animate the logo" on the menu screen.
Schedules have started to slip. The team has switched into crunch time and is working late (10pm); looking at the video, there appear to be a number of other teams in the same situation.
It's clear that the success of the project has hinged on careful scheduling and time planning. The team have set achievable goals and appears to be meeting them. This also included experimentation, and it'd be interesting to find out how they judged the amount of time needed for this. I'd also certainly like to know more about the "scale charts" mentioned earlier.
It's fairly evident from the videos, though, that they're starting to tire of the game by week 7 -- something worth considering on bigger projects, where a break is not only desirable but necessary.
Well, that's the end of part 1. Part 2 will follow, looking at the main game elements (aesthetics, mechanics, narrative & technology).