Bouncy Ball: Idle Cash

Game Link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ndmJaUltb4LcQjPxd51rMu6N7F0mKsA8/view?usp=sharing

Expanded Concept & Design USP's

Popular hyper and hybridcasual games commonly implement unlockable tile systems, rewarding players with resource generators such as buildings or physical land space and greater exploration of the world. Coupled with this seen widely across a range of different UA creatives to interesting effect, I wanted to include this system in a simple game in which the user taps to move a bouncing ball along tracks, with every bounce generating idle income and every x bounces granting a benefit such as an additional ball or big cash stack. Including an upgrade and power-up system allows users to progress through the core loop at a quicker pace.

Overarching Design Problem

In my attempt to be broadly appealing the game resulted in no soft or hard fail states, with only temporarily running out of money being the barrier to progression. This meant that, unlike competitor hypercasual games, there are no meaningful challenges to overcome.

How That Problem Was Tackled And Overcome

Future scope will include introducing a series of obstacles and traps. Bigger traps such as holes will result in players restarting from the beginning of their current track, losing a minute's worth of progress. Smaller traps will simply push the player further back on the track, losing only a few seconds of progress. The hypercasual player will see both challenges' fail states as adequate and not frustrating. 

Offering these significant challenges opens up the opportunity to elevate the game to hybridcasual, letting me implement hybridcasual best practices of a mid-core meta (RPG progression, shop, IAP opportunities) to better help engage and retain players.