My tutor had made me aware of the game a few months earlier; I chose to carry out a detailed case study because it had a number of things in common with my own research: casual gaming, old toys, and combining mechanics with intrinsic narrative; also, the game was developed using the Unity game engine, which is my own tool of choice.
The case study was a fascinating exercise and opened my eyes to a number of factors I'd never before considered. I'd contacted Sophia with a handful of technical questions and she was kind enough to reply with some helpful and enlightening answers.
Since then, Sophia has commenced her role as Games Designer in Residence at the V&A Museum in London and, among her many duties, is currently working on a video game inspired by William Morris's Strawberry Thief textile patterns.
As as designer-in-residence, she holds regular open workshops so I took the opportunity to visit the museum and drop in to quiz her more, and to get her opinion on some preliminary designs I'd done for a Tick Tock Toys level weaving my own nostalgia-based ideas with her existing structures.
She's a very smart cookie and has had to learn a lot of things very quickly. Her prominent public profile promoting the games industry -- she's just been named one of Develop's "25 People That Changed Games in 2013" -- has given her great access to explore the wider workings of the sector. With Sophia's permission, I'd like to publish some of the information she shared with me.
Q&A with Sophia George
The mechanics of Tick Tock Toys are linked to the limited movements of certain types of toy. I asked Sophia which came first, the toys or the movements (as an abstraction)? Given that my own designs looked at the items first and extracted a mechanic, I'd expected a similar response. Hence I was quite surprised when she stated the opposite:
"The mechanics of the game came before its toybox theme. I really wanted the gameplay to be described simply – such as 'Get the X to the Y'. I was looking at old games like Super Mario Bros for the NES and saw that the gameplay was to simply get the character from one side of the screen to the other, while avoiding obstacles.So why choose toys?
"So for Tick Tock Toys, you have to get the robot from one side of the screen to the other, but you control the object rather than the main character."
"The game was designed for a ‘family’ audience, so I thought toys would be perfect! Children like toys, and parents/older siblings can feel nostalgic. Toys are also very versatile. They can vary from country to country, and are different depending on what era they are from. We kind of looked ahead and thought if the game was mega successful, there was lots of opportunities for expansions – such as Mexican toys, Japanese toys, Bauhaus style toys, 80s, etc!"
My case study gave the impression that she had put a lot of attention into character design, which turned out to be correct: "I really enjoy character design, so its visual appearance is important to me." She was particularly pleased that other designers had recognised the depth of work that had gone into her designs.
She later explained that the Tic Toc robot -- which I had already presumed was influenced by the Lilliput tin toys of the 1950s -- was originally inspired by the Japanese Keepon interactive robot (see dancing video!)
As I'd discovered from my own work, using familiar toys quickly brings up copyright & trademark issues. I asked her how she dealt with this.
She later explained that the Tic Toc robot -- which I had already presumed was influenced by the Lilliput tin toys of the 1950s -- was originally inspired by the Japanese Keepon interactive robot (see dancing video!)
 |
| (left) Keepon; (centre) Lilliput tin robot; (right) Tic Toc |
"We felt that we had to be careful with copyright, just in case! The goal in the game is a Frisbee, but we couldn't call it that because it's trademarked! I also wanted to have the Fisher-Price styled ['Chatterbox'] phone, but we changed it; the original bear looked a bit like the Japanese character Rilakkuma."
 |
| (left) Playmobil knight; (centre) game knight model; (right) final game character |
"The camera angle was very tricky to achieve. A top-down view would be the easiest to achieve, but it would have abstracted some of the 3D models. All of the artists were firmly against a top down view (one of them told me they wouldn’t work on the project if it was top-down!) We also have the UI on the back wall, so it was important that it was easy to spot. So we just did a few experiments in Unity and ended up with what you see in the final game."Finally, what about feature creep -- was that an issue?
"We finished the core game, with graphics and effects with one month of the competition to spare. This is when we focused on bonus levels and polish, so feature creep was never an issue – I guess it helps to know exactly what you want your game to be like."My own projects have a habit of spiralling out of control, so this last point was very educational and reinforced what I'd learned elsewhere: make a very detailed plan and stick to it!
At the V&A we chatted about some of the things Sophia had learned from exploring the wider industry, including the need to have very clear leadership on a group project.
Tick Tock Toys contains free levels but further levels need to be purchased as a pack (at a reasonable cost). One aspect I was interested to know more about was her experiences with freemium / in-app purchasing (IAP). She had recently visited a major company who operate in this field, and was concerned about the potential ethical problems of this business model, which led on to related topics such as gamification in retail.
I'm extremely grateful to Sophia for sparing time to discuss her work as a designer and certainly found it extremely informative & educational.