LO4 - Target Audience Description

 My game is targeted at a younger audience demographic, best suited for kids aged between four and 10 years old. I feel that this game, due to larger amounts of male characters to female characters, will appeal more to a male audience, although anyone is welcome to play and the femal audience may be attracted to the cute and comical characters also. My ABC1 demographic would be BC1C2 as I think that it would easily purchased by this class of people as they have easy access to a phone to download the app.

Audience Profile: Michael is seven years old boy . He enjoys playing games on his dad's phone such as Angry Birds and Tetris. If his dad's using his phone he will use his Nintendo DS to play on his Super Mario game instead. His favourite types of TV shows are comedies and cartoons, his favourite being Spongebob Squarepants which he enjoys watching for the colourful and intersting characters and simplitic visual humour.

LO4 - Gameplay Example

Below is an example of how Monkey Business might appear if created into an actual app game. Mr. Key's movements woul be controlled by the player via touchscreen (although his canoeing actions would be animated and automatic), whilst the obstacles would be set to move vertically on their own. The hoizon (buildings) would become closer as the game continues. The counter in the corner would countdown to show the player how much time is left on that level.

LO4 - Moodboard

Below is the moodboard I created when planning what content to study as inspiration for my own product, analysing their appearance, features, and how they may appeal to the target audience for my game and how I can incorporate these factors into my own project.

LO4 - Game Idea Budget

Whilst finding this part challenging, I was still able to conclude the budget required if my idea was converted into an actual, playable game to a professional standard. I came up with the budget for a purchasable console game instead of an app game, which was later decided as the preferred gameplay format from received feedback. These numbers were decided based upon my research of similar video game budgets and from feedback from teaching staff and Sumo Digital representatives.

To develop Monkey Business into a fit-for-purpose, playable game of a professional standard would probably require 3 staff members for 9 months.

Development costs = £83,000.

Marketing costs = £20,000.

46,000 copies of Monkey Business would need to be sold to gain profit. 

Below are the calculations of costs, time scales and workers required to create Monkey Business if it was distributed as a purchasable console product. For this I was assisted by one of my tutors based upon research of similiar games in the market.

LO4 - Game Production Schedule

Below is the schedule created when plaaning which activities to perform and when to ensure they were completed within the provided time. I presented my game idea along with everyone else with the appropriate items to demonstrate my game plan. So although admittedly I did not always keep to schedule I did make sure that the work was completed before the end of the 6th week.

LO4 - Game Idea Visuals/Artwork

Below is an example of some of the early hand drawn concept art I created for my game concept, Monkey Business. I was not going for a realistic style but instead went with a colourful cartoon style that would appeal more to the young audience demographic.

Once completing early designs on paper I moved onto re-creating these visuals on Adobe Illustrator and adding colour via Photoshop. The designs above were inspiration for the designs below, with some slight alterations made (e.g. the colour of Mr. Key's tie and which were changed to yellow as I felt that this colour was more assosicaiated with monkeys and bananas, the position of his legs to make his stance appear more ape-like and the addition of a beard to the zookeeper to make him look older and more villainous and threatening).

Some more of my designs are shown below, which include graphics of Mr. Key and the obstacles. As well as the colourful, cartoon style I also attempted to make them visually humourous, such as the octopus that has been made to look like a pirate with an eye patch and hook on one of the tentacles, or the shark modeled in homage to the poster for the movie Jaws. All the personified/ anthropomorphasised obstacles have been given yellow eyes as a visual character to trait to make them easier to identify as obstacle through the connection of their evil design from their angry yellow eyes. This is one example of mise-en-scene.

LO4 - Game Ideas

Below is a mind map of my ideas for a game concept.

These ideas include: -
*Monkey Business
*A Man Walks into a Bar
*The Knight's Quest

My chosen game concept idea, which I have decided to further and improve on, is Monkey Business.