First ideas of game mechanics and items
When thinking of what project to choose for the D&AD task, I chose Candy Crush prototype ideas, I then saw a couple of my class maters who had similar ideas and we decided to team up. I drew on a big sheet of paper, my initial ideas and laid out some simple designs to develop them further. Some ideas on this sheet were seemed great but could not continue in development since it would be against the brief.
Chillies
Sweet pots with varied sweets and blank pot next to it
One of my main ideas was a powerup meter which would make the gameplay speed up and force the player to solve the puzzle quicker. One of the designs for the meter was chillies and the other was cotton candy.
The sweet tubs (now called "pots") are an item which would remove one colour themed items from the board.
Full page of updated ideas
Over the next week or so, I finished up the main ideas I had and developed them further in design. I initially made a giant candy crush board simulating a normal level just to see how they would compare in size. Another old idea I had made were numbered candy that once the player put each 1, 2, 3 in row. This would clear a whole row if done correctly (these could have also been coloured in the order of traffic lights) The "chili rush" and "Sugar rush" would fill up from their corresponding bars and also give the player a boost in gameplay as well as speeding it up.
After scanning my drawn out mind map, I finalized the names of these items too only to put digitally in illustrator.
Sugar and Chili Rush bars
Sweet bags and reference
Here above are some of the digital versions I made in adobe illustrator of the game icons I wanted to continue with. The Rush bars on the left has a ticker at the top to show when the player can activate the boost. There is also a label for the lowest and max amount they can achieve. The Sweet bags on the right are inspired by a simple one shown below with an example of an assortment of sweets. They come in red and blue variations.
Sweet tubs and tub machine
Other sweet item ideas
The next major design I created in illustrator was a Giant sweet tub ("pot") machine which holds the sweet pots shown and the player after level would be able to exchange in-game currency to turn it clockwise to dispense a pot for the next level they play. This could also be used in the level, if the player chose to exchange some time for a spin on the machine. The pots would then once used, remove 1 colour theme from the board at random.
harshil p4
Harshil p5
These pictures above are the first styled designs Harshil, my teammate made. The image on the left has the power bars shown next to similar game elements. The chili and cotton candy bars are there also.
The right image is a closer look at the chili and cotton candy rush boost bars being filled, the cotton candy icon is now blue as against the standard pink background it would not be seen. Luckily Cotton candy comes in many colours like red, blue, green and yellow. We took into consideration that blue would look the best for this.
Harshil p1
Harshil also made this very neat and tidy Hud display which would appear in game. The wheel on the right would spin and let the player be given a random powerup. Harshil used the existing icons for some logos as well as the right colour scheme for the background display.
These last few pictures at the bottom are from my PowerPoint that I made to showcase my progress. I have notes for the progress and quotes from my teammates on what they achieved in the team work we did. Harshil made the UI design while Joon wrote most of the crucial information and research.