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Rapid Prototyping Process Example

Archer Danger Phone - Boss Fights

Archer Danger Phone was an idle mobile game with character collection mechanics. Upon ascension in the idle game, when you've reached the next level, we wanted to create boss level experience that tied the narrative and themes together. The following is the process my team and I took to get to a shoot-out style game mode.

Goals

The Boss fight needed to be:

Modular enough to create new themes and content for a live model.
Enough depth to be interesting and challenging across many levels.
Can be played in 30s- to a minute.
On brand with the show - humorous while capturing the spy theme.

Brainstorming

We quickly brainstormed several ideas landing on three core concepts to draw up and prototype:

Car chase - Quick driving and shooting game through a busy city
Shoot out - a saloon type shooting game using Archer's office
Slap fight - A tapping mini game all about slapping Archer

Strike Team Concept & Prototyping

A strike team was created:
Game Designer, Artist/UX Designer, Engineer

Over 2 weeks
Created and refined 3 playable prototypes in Unity Game engine. Each 2 days a new playable was available to test and play with the studio.

Play Testing

All three prototypes were played tested daily both internally and with a play test cloud group. We measured success on a qualitative 5 star scale across:

Brand theming - how well did this game feel like Archer and make them laugh
Fun factor - What did the player rate the fun factor
Difficulty feel - How challenging did the player rate the game

Quantitative Data:

Player session data - how long did they play the game for and how many times did they replay
Player end scores - how well did the player score compared to our estimates

Selection & Grading

Based on a week of playtesting data we graded each prototype, pointing the data back to our original goals. During playtesting the strike team further refined the level design and implementation plan. This was also graded on depth, and ability to scale with the game.

Ultimately "Shoot Out," was the highest ranked prototype and gameplay the team was most excited to develop further.
Slap fight will always have a special place in our hearts.

Implementation

The final game used documentation and referenced code from the rapid prototypes. All textures and animations were further developed. Learnings such as pacing, visual feedback and rewards were taken further and integrated into the full game.

Set pieces were built in a way that developers could change out backgrounds, enemies, UI elements and even add a final boss enemy. This all shipped with the final game.

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