How to make then ideal game

"The best game is a game of imagination".

We had 11 students, 6 experts, 6 iMacs and thousands of crazy ideas including hamster monsters, post-Apocalyptic scenes and flying capsules. We cannot say that it was enough to create the ideal game, but it was enough for 4 pretty good concepts.  

On 28 July Game Development Lab students presented their projects to the judges. With help from top staff at Murka they were able to develop 4 new games.

Among the experts who worked with the student were Anatoliy Genis (CTO, Murka), Varvara Medvedeva (Project Manager, Murka) and Igor Sologubov (Product Manager, Murka). For sure, they know what the ideal game is, as they’ve launched more than a few bestselling games in their time. “We almost physically feel the mentors' desire and eagerness to work. Every one of them shows high professionalism and fresh eyes,” shared one of the students Mikhail Manilo of his experience. 

It’s not easy to make the ideal game. You need to take a lot of different factors into account: innovation, game play, implementation, interface, monetization, etc. Students of the Noosphere Engineering School were up to it though and now we have 4 new game concept:

Hamster Adventure — a social game for children aged 16 and above.

A hamster runs through barriers gathering cherries. The level is completed when the hamster has finished the task or when the time runs out. Passing each level, the character is awarded with gold which may be used to customize the hamster – to increase its speed, height of its jumps or buy bonus time. 

This game is intended to develop spatial thinking skills which is why it includes interesting logic puzzles and bright and child-friendly graphics and bonuses.

Team members: Yevgeniy Syrnikov and Vladislav Ostrovskiy.

BeatBoss — Android arcade-style game

An ancient Egyptian Pharaoh has hidden his treasures behind six seals. The game character stole these treasures and is now trying to get out of the pyramid. His path winds through 6 worlds and battles against various monsters that belong to four elements: fire, air, earth and water. 

A gamer can kill the monsters using spells and at the end of each level they must beat a main boss.

Team members: Yuliya Kulinich, Valeriy Baditsa and Igor Sayevich.

2037 Runner

PostApocalypse. There was an opening of a wormhole and monsters began to come out of this opening to the Earth. The main character is trying to save the world from these terrifying monsters. 

Game has two parts:

1.A story line with 3 education levels

2.Arcade fun

For each level the game completes they get new abilities to help them kill monsters better. Another thing the character has to do is gather as many charges (power-ups) as possible. Using the charges the gamer can get even more abilities that will help defeat the evil tide.

Team members: Vyacheslav Filimonov, Vladislav Matyash and Dmitriy Gorbunov.

Square Ball — a multiplatform runner with action elements

An expedition goes far into space but the spacecraft crashes, breaking up into several capsules which fall to the nearest planet. This celestial body has a unique form of life – cubes. They fall on the capsules which makes them heavier and more difficult to control. One more enemy, a black hole, swallows and temporary blocks the capsule. A gamer has to save the capsule from the cubes and black holes and assemble all the different partsof the spacecraft together again.

The game has 12 routes that the gamer gets points for as they pass through. Using the accumulated points they can then buy additional abilities in the shop - demagnitization (capsule becomes immune to cubes), explosion (capsule stops and knocks all attached cubes off.), etc. 

Team members: Mikhail Manilo and Artiom Stepanchenko.

According to the experts’ assessment, Hamster Adventure was the best game because it address the development and education of children. The project was recognized as the most prospective in terms of monetization. “There is a future for this project. All children want to develop, and mobile devices are able to help them do so. AppStore actively promotes educational games,” noted Igor Sologubov.

"the app market for children is not over saturated, therefore there is room for such an application,” added Varvara Medvedeva.

Creators of "2037 Runner" were awarded a special prize from the experts. This project was recognized as the most elaborate in terms of graphics, time spent on aesthetics and presentation. 

Vyacheslav Filimonov was the best student of the program. He gained the most bonus chess figures for taking active part in the lessons.  

All the winners received gift certificates to make a purchase in “Citrus” shops. Apart from Certificates of Completion for the "Unity 3D" program, every graduate also received a gift from the experts - a corporate T-shirt from the Game Development Lab.

As you can see the first graduating class of "Unity 3D" yielded ample fruit in the form of perspective game concepts. We hope that they will grow into full-fledged game hits and dozens of new students will join the Game Development Lab to make their dreams of designing the ideal game come true.