A More Indepth Look Into the Environmental iPad Game

     As I begin to think more and more about a potential iPad game dealing with environmental learning, so many different ideas come to mind.  I have begun doing some research into the current top iPad games and playing different games to see what I personally enjoy about them.  For instance, the games I stick with the longest are the ones where I am actually playing other players.  Some of those players I actually know (which makes it even more fun) and other opponents are random.  With that being said, I also enjoy playing games with individual missions.  In general, though, after several days, weeks, and sometimes even months, I become bored with those games and move on to different ones.  The games I move on from the quickest are the ones that become less challenging or the ones that I feel that I'm not making much progress.  So, with this being said, I want to design a game that encourages online play with others as well as individual challenges.  Thus, players may not get as bored as quickly with the game.  Also, it is important to keep the game challenging and keep players feeling like they are making progress in the game.  Overall, I want there to be one final goal players reach.  Once they reach that goal, they can either try playing the game on a different difficulty, try beating their top scores, or play the multi-player version of the game.  In addition, I want the multi-player version to be somewhat different than the individual version so players are less likely to become bored.  Finally, education is still the main goal of the game, so that needs to be kept in mind when actually designing it.  In my opinion, this will be a tough task to accomplish, but with some planning and determination, an appropriate game can be developed.  In the end, though, testing and experimenting are the only real ways to determine the amount of fun the game actually is; however, I am confident in my ability to produce a game that others will enjoy.

Gems With Friends

     Currently, Gems With Friends is my favorite iPad game.  This game is even appealing when just browsing through the iTunes store for different apps.  It is very bright and colorful, two of my very favorite things!  This is a great idea to attract initial interest into any iPad game.  Once that initial interest is caught, though, the game needs to keep players equally interested.  So, my first idea for my iPad game is for a very colorful and visually appealing game.  If the game does not look fun, it might not attract as much attention as a game that looks fun.  Now, the hard part is to come up with a game that is as fun as it is visually appealing so players enjoy it.  I feel that if the game is interactive with other players and is fun, players will encourage friends to download the game as well, attracting more attention. 

Food Chain

 My initial ideas for the actual game play of the game has to do with actually developing food chains or something along those lines, and obtaining more points and power-ups once that is done.  After 1 or 2 minutes of making food chains with different animals that are randomly given to players, who ever has the most points wins that rounds.  Each player would begin with five blocks that have different levels of the food chain and once those blocks are used, new ones would spawn.  The sun would be the most basic block since it is the starting point.  Then would come grass or plants, then animals, then humans.  My first idea would be that each player has to connect 3 suns and then the block would transform into grass.  Once 3 grasses are connected, it would move up the food chain again until the block turns into a human.  Once this happens, 3 human blocks can connect and a lot of points would be earned.  Players can work on developing different food chains at the same time on the board.  My other idea would be that players would have to connect food chain blocks in the correct order instead of 3 of the same.  Whoever can successfully make the most food chains would probably score more points and win.  Although these ideas are just very basic and the start, I feel that there is some potential in both of these games.