App Game Research...

Since I've been swaying towards making my app include a game I opted to look into the big app games that are highly successful and aimed at a broad audience.

Angry birds is perhaps the most well known, Using swipe motions and a sling shot you have to drag the sling shot back and release to fire the birds at the pigs. The less birds you use and the more pigs you knock of the more points you get. The games itself centres around the two sets of characters birds and pigs which I think helps to maintain the necessary simplicity.The cartoon style used is bright and effective and theres a clear sense of background and foreground which ensures that the focus of the game remains on the characters. The backgrounds are simple but detailed enough to generate this world and provide additional detail. The world is full of flat shapes and colours- there aren't any additional textures to interfere with the game itself. This once again keeps the visuality simplistic and fairly generic so it appeals to a large audience. The interface of the app is also relatively simple with one button that brings a sidebar menu into view, this menu has a back button, a redo button and a main menu button. This allows there to be navigation without interfering with the app dynamics and visuality and I plan on considering this for my own design.

Fruit Ninja is another very popular game- swiping as many fruits as possible before the timer runs out in as many combinations as you can, you also have special bananas that release certain useful tricks when hit and bombs that must be avoided. The ninja game also uses a sole swipe movement which keeps the game simple.  The colours are  bright and text is used to let you know when you've achieved a target and I really like how the blurred lines of colour visually display your movement. Once again the fruit is simply shaded and theres no additional fuss in the styling which keeps the focus on the game. The timed aspect helps to give the game more of a goal and I particularly like how background patterns are introduced to clarify certain achievements and targets as well. Again the interface and navigation is simple and their are 4 different types of games that can be played which is signified through the use of different fruits as icons. When playing the game, like Angry Birds, theres also one button that you have to hit to release a top bar navigation panel containing a back redo and main menu button.

This cupcake game isn't really popular but I liked how recipes have been made into a game. Once again it manipulates simple movements you have to drag the ingredients into the mixing bowl and swirl to mix them together, tapping the milk releases drops which fall into the bowl and then you can decorate by shaking the app and releasing the sprinkles. For something so simple its very effective and I like the way that it makes you use different motions. I also like how each stage is emphasised by the different motions. The interface needs work since as far as I can tell you have to finish the game before you can navigate back to the main menu. Im not a huge fan of the styling either but it matches the home baking content. 

I am a lot more certain now that a game is the avenue I want to go down. It'll fill the entertainment aspect of the brief and allow me to integrate more movement. I was initially worried about making my app landscape on both Ipad and Iphone but since both Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja manipulate a landscape positioning I'm not as worried although its dependent on my background I think a landscape positioning will work better because it will allow me to incorporate wider movements.