2. Existing Product
Mario is the best selling game of all time
and therefor is fantastic to analyse because
it clearly successfully targeted lots of
different types of people. The plain
background means that the characters can
stand out quite well and so can the things
on the foreground. This is very well
designed. Despite the pixelated characters
and details it still looks very clear and looks
very good, I will hopefully try to emulate
this. The colour scheme here is very bright
and colours of the surroundings are very
different from each other so they don’t get
to blended into each other because this
would negatively effect the gameplay. I
believe that the way the enemies aren’t
people helps to make no feelings of sadness
to killing enemies.
3. Existing Product
Donkey Kong country is not a particularly well
known game but was a platform game with a
very simple but good game play, Donkey
Kong would go around jumping on enemies
heads and throwing barrels at enemies. There
were animals around such as a rhino that you
could ride and use to help complete the
mission. I would like to use this concept and
have objects around the map that could help
complete the mission, i believe that the idea
of using a gorrilla and monkey as the main
characters is very clever because they are a
popular friendly animal and with enemies like
crocodiles, beavers etc. there is not a huge
bunch of people who would object. I also
believe that the bright colours of bananas on
the game is great to make them stand out.
4. Existing Product
Crash Bandicoot was a similar concept but In a
3D style world, I like the idea of the having
small puzzles and difficult obstacles along the
way to make it harder and I will try and add
something like this into my game. The colours
on this game are brilliant and completely
stand out. It has such a clever and unique idea
and this is why it is appealing to the targetted
audience which for this game at the time was
probably anywhere between the age of 7 and
16 though i believe the audience for this game
was huge and probably did not follow a
particular pattern for ages. I believe that the
mixture between quite difficult levels,
colourful characters and surroundings, simple
controls and easy game concepts made it
suitable for such a large audience
5. Existing Product
Spyro was the name of a small dragon that
would run around a small world and try and find
the way into the next world, this would
sometimes involve using his obvious ability
which was flying/gliding, this is what i believe to
be one of the reasons that this game was set
aside from others, it had a strong colour scheme
that was easy to fall in love with and the
gmeplay was so unique from anything else
available on the market at this time. He would
go around collecting gems and using his gliding
ability he would try and complete the game. I
wish to try and create an ability for my
character which would set it aside from other
games. The target audience for this game is
probably quite similar to the one on crash
bandicoot because it was so original that it was
a game for all ages and genders
6. Research Analysis
• What common features do the researched
products have?
– Bright colours that make the character stand out from the
background
– Enemies to defeat
• What aspects of the research will you include
within your own work?
– All of the above
8. Audience research
• Observation:
– What this says about my audience: that the types of games that they enjoy is very varied and will help
me make a game that is enjoyable for lots of different types of gamers
• How will your product appeal to this audience:
– I will make a platform game but add the aspects of Fifa and hopefully also oblivion to make it more
enjoyable for lots of different types of people. I will do this by taking the aspects of these games that
become addictive. For example EA introduces using “packs” where you buy one and don’t know what
you are going to get inside the pack so it becomes more and more addictive as you or people around
you gets a particularly good player. The addictive things about oblivion and Skyrim are that there is
just so much to do within the game. You can complete the main quest and still afterwards have lots of
things to do in the game, I will try and add these two general ideas in the hope that I can add both
features to make my game more successful.
9. Audience research
• Observation:
• What this says about my audience:
– That once again it is incredibly well balanced and I have a very varied audience to please
• How will your product appeal to this audience:
– I will not make my game specifically for one market, I will attempt to make it appealing to
lots of types of gamers. I will do this by targeting what gamers like about each game, this
should mean that I can get a audience from all types of gamers. I will look at what makes
people like games like battlefield and fallout and I will focus on the positives and negatives
of these games and try and use the positives to make my game good while leaving out the
negatives.
10. Audience research
• Observation:
• What this says about my audience:
– That they are very varied
• How will your product appeal to this audience:
– My genre is a platform game which is risky because few of the people in the survey said that a platform game would
be their preferred choice. But however I believe that by mixing the aspects of the favoured genres can be similar to a
platform game. For example I have added a knight as the main character to add in a bit of fantasy. I found it difficult
to make it similar to a football game but from my understanding I believe that there is a lot of competitiveness in
football games so I have made a game that you can see how long you last in the game and then compete with friends.
11. Audience research
• Observation:
• What this says about my audience:
– That the story/plot is very important but graphics and atheistic qualities are also very important
• How will your product appeal to this audience:
– The story and gameplay will be detailed and the graphics are limited as It will be a pixel based game but as
long as its well designed that should not be an issue. I believe that it is very clear that the majority of the
target audience want good graphics which is a difficult task for a pixel styled game. This however should
not be a huge problem because I believe that I can bring a good level of how realistic it can be to it with
the blending tools available on Photoshop. The story also seemed to be quite important but while making
a game like mine I do not believe that I can completely focus on this so I have made a game that should
not really need an introduction
12. Audience research
• Observation:
• What this says about my audience:
– That once again it is incredibly well balanced and I have a very varied audience to please
• How will your product appeal to this audience:
– I will include the good features from each of these companies and try to create something
that attracts all of these companies fans. I will look through the things that people love
about Nintendo which after research I have realised that the simple fun gameplay in the
main attraction. Also the company EA did really well in my survey and therefor I tried to
find the main attraction within there games which I discovered was the addictiveness so I
am also going to try and add this into my game
14. Interview 1
• What colour do you think stands out and is appropriate for
the main character in a platform game?
– I believe no colour can stand out by itself and rather contrasting
colours are that which stand out. For example, Mario wouldn’t stand
out nearly as much if the whole level was red, or sonic if the whole
stage was blue.
• What elements should be key in a platform game?
– A smooth running or walking motion as well as realistic gravity effects.
• In a platform game should enemies be considered essential?
– Enemies are not needed for a platform game, using Super Meat Boy as
an example, platform games can rely on obstacles rather than
enemies.
15. Interview 1
• Observation:
– It think that from this I can decide that it is
important that I get a contrast between colours
• What this says about my audience:
– That they think the colour scheme in Mario is a
good example of contrasting colours
• How will your product appeal to this
audience:
– I will contrast the colours
16. Interview 2
• What colour do you think stands out and is
appropriate for the main character in a platform
game?
– Red because Mario is red
• What elements should be key in a platform game?
– Upgrades, like in mario
• In a platform game should enemies be considered
essential?
– Yes, like in Mario, goombas are enemies so they
should be in a platform game
17. Interview 2
• Observation: Mario has a colour scheme that I
can try to use on my own work
• What this says about my audience: they really
like mario
• How will your product appeal to this
audience: I will analyse Mario and try and put
the good aspects from the Mario games into
my own
18. Audience Profile
Category Demographic Content to appeal to this audience
Age Range
7-13 • Bright colours and nothing offensive, no
graphic violence and friendly, easy to
understand gameplay
Gender
Mostly male • A knight in popular colours that should
be appealing to either genders
Psychographic
Needs driven • I will create a game that is addictive and
once you have played it you will feel the
need to buy it
Social Status
Lower class • it will be a cheap, low performance
game so nothing major is required. It will
be simple gameplay intended for
everyone but will be most likely most
enjoyed by people of a lower class
background
20. Research Evaluation
• Give an overview of how you conducted your research. Discuss
the strengths and weaknesses of each method
– Product Research
• I thought of a few similar games from my childhood that it thought if I analysed I good extract the
best parts and make something really good, i decided to extract the things that i believe made the
game successful, for example i believe the simple controls and gameplay of the games i analysed
were huge reasons for the success so i will try and do this as well. The only downside to this was that
i only got my own opinion on these games so it is possible that my view will have been different to
others opinions
– Questionnaires
• I wrote some questions and put them online for people to review, once I had 10 people answer my
questionnaire I analysed them. This was good because it gave views of so many people, it helped me
to understand alternative views to my own so that the game i made is not simply a game that i
enjoy, it can also be a game that people of all audiences would enjoy. The only negative to this is
that it was such a varied response that it gave me such a difficult talk to appeal to all the audiences
– Interviews
• I asked 2 people some questions, wrote down the answers and analysed them, i believe that the
posetives to this was that i got some good, carefully explained responces that helped me understand
what the target audience wanted, the only real negative was that i only interviewed 2 people and i
believe i couldve got some more helpful responces if i interviewed more people
21. From the research that i have done i have decided that there are various
things that i have researched that i will try and involve in my product, one of
those things being that i want my game to be addictive, i believe that Fifa and
EA in general was largely a popular style that my target audience enjoyed and
so i have extracted what i believe EAs two key features to their success which
are the competitiveness and how addictive it can be due to the amount of
luck required in the “pack” part of the game. I have also tried to look at the
successfulness of some of the games i analyzed myself such as mario, i think
the way that you play the game can change the style that you play, for
example destroying boxes in mario can completely change the game and in
my game if a piece of the floor id destroyed it can not only make it much more
difficult but it also means that you will have to jump so you will be mid-air
some of the time so you will have less time to dodge falling rocks. It was very
clear from the interviews that the target audience was wanting the game to
have very smooth movement in the game so i will try and add smooth
movement and smooth jumping into the game
Research Evaluation
