OUGD503 - Responsive - YCN BEAR - Collectable Mechanic

For the ‘collectable mechanic’ to accompany the cards would be the Anatomy adventures app for parents and guardians to download onto their tablets or phones or an online anatomy adventures game. 

I began by designing an online game but after consulting a focus group decided that as most children's parents have ipads, tablets or smart phones, an app would be more accessible to them, as children are more likely to borrow their parent's devices for an app than to log into a computer to play an online game. 

This is what the online game looked like:

However, an app would work better on many different levels. 

With every new pack there would be an accompanying barcode which can be scanned in on the app to unlock a new level which links to it’s accompanying card’s body part.

Although unconventional compared to what the previous Bear cards series have done before, kids will enjoy unlocking and collecting new levels on a virtual game and parents will appreciate having less clutter to tidy up after their children.

This approach is also more environmentally conscious as an app creates less of a carbon footprint than a poster series or book would, reducing the use of paper in production and waste once the series goes out of date and is replaced with a new trend.

The game can remain on the tablet or phone for as long as possible and with the potential for an unlimited number of levels it will keep children entertained for hours and ensure the Bear brand is kept in the forefront of their minds.

The style of the drawings in the app create consistency between the game and the cards as they feature the same style of hand rendered illustrations and textures. 

The levels I created to accompany my cards were: 

• Belly Button Bounce - A game similar to doodle jump where you tilt the device from side to side to make the bear character move to the stepping stones, in this case bellybuttons. Bear can collect fruit yoyos along the way for extra points. The aim of the game is to get as high a score as possible with the bellybuttons gradually moving further away. 

• Hair Maze - A game where you can help Bear to get out of the maze by dragging him with your finger. Every time you complete a maze a more complicated one appears on the screen as a new level.

• Dodge the socks - A game where you tilt the device from side to side to help bear get out the way of the falling sweaty socks. The longer you stay in the game without a sock touching Bear the higher the score. If a sock lands on you the score goes back to zero. 

All scores are recorded in the score-board on the home page. New levels can be accessed by scanning the bar code on the pack of Yoyo's you have bought. 

For the game I had to create Bear as a virtual character so did some research into ways this could be done. I created Bear in a series of stances to be used in various scenarios. 
Again, I found this challenging and ended up playing around with lots of different styles and illustrations in a range of programmes including illustrator and photoshop until I found something I liked the look of. 

I wasn't happy with any of the above so decided to use the same technique as all of my other illustrations in the series I drew him in pen and ink and scanned him into Photoshop to add colour:

I was way more happy with this result and thought he was simple enough to be used as he is in a range of different scenarios and due to the age range of the target audience it didn't matter that he didn't move and acted more like a static toy object.