iPhone Game Project: Fishing Mania

Fishing Mania

A game design and 2d art exercise project

I've been thinking about designing a fishing game for iPhone since the beginning of this year. I already work as a interface designer for smartphone apps, but never had the chance to work on a game project. And then I decided to work on this exercise at my free time, in other words, at late night. It is important to notice that there are still some interface and graphic adjustments to be made.

The game mechanics are the following:

1) Throwing the hook

A power meter appears, increasing and decreasing automatically. The user must tap the button at the right time to make the hook travel farther or closer. The more the meter is filled (red section), farther it travels. The accelerometer allows you to change the direction by turning the iPhone

2) Attracting the fish

Using the iPhone's accelerometer, give short shakes with the device in order to simulate the act of pushing back the line. Doing it in a proper rythm gives you more chances to catch the best fishes. Your hook is represented by the glowing red dot floating at the water.

3) Fighting the fish and catching him

Now that you attracted the fish, it's time to bring it to you! To do it, you need to manage the tension of the rid's wire, and tire the fish. The circular HUD that surrounds the character acts like the rod's reel. The red part is where the player's finger is supposed to be.

The mechanic it's pretty much the same as an old radio turner. Spin it backwards to move the red marker left, towards to move it right. The objective is to align the marker with the fish icon. If the fih icon goes too far away from the marker, it means that the wire it's too stretched, and it'll break, consequently you'll lose the fish too.

As mentioned before, there are still some matters to be thought about, like achievements, score system, and something like an "addiction factor" to increase the replay value.

First, during a couple of days I worked on concepts, sketches, drawing characters, screens, and writing ideas:

After that, I went to the computer, where I designed the game layout, drawed the background, character, HUD, etc.

Wait the meter reaches the desired amout, then tap "Throw!"

Full Power!

The red glowing spot represents your hook. You can also check how far and how depht your hook are by seeing the minimap

Be smart and do not let the fish go away with your bait!

There you go! Nice catch!

The art direction's objective is to give the game a cartoony cute and friendly look & feel, thus reaching players from all ages. I believe that caring abour how your game will look, investing time to develop a proper graphic design really makes the difference. Features besides the gameplay (wich is obviously the most important feature), like sound and how the game looks helps a lot to give charisma to the game, making him notable and standing out among it's competitors.