Mystery of Carrot Castle
Game Development | UX Design
Role: Game Developer, UX Designer
Client: PBS Kids Sprout (NBC Universal)
Platform: Adobe Flash / ActionScript 3.0
Detective Chica is on the case! Kelly has lost some items in Carrot Castle and she needs your help! Help Chica by searching for hidden items throughout various rooms in the castle.
Project Brief
Chica is a puppet who, along with her parents and friend Kelly, runs a costume shop known as The Costume Coop. When the shop closes, she and her friends become animated and go on a number of adventures.
One of her adventures takes place in the web-based game Mystery of Carrot Castle. In this game, you work with Detective Chica to locate various items throughout Carrot Castle.
Challenges
The primary challenge was ensuring proper alignment between the standard view of the room and the zoomed-in version displayed in the magnifying glass. This required continuous calculations to ensure that as the user moved their mouse, the correct items were shown up close in detail. Fortunately, once the system was implemented and functioning correctly, it could be easily replicated for subsequent levels.
As with all Sprout properties, replay value was super important. I had to take into account that the level could not be easily repeatable. So, there were a number of items available in each level that were chosen at random for the user to find. This increased both the amount of sprites to display as well as the logic to make sure the user could find them.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed working with Sprout's creative team on this one. They provided some really fun environments that were brought to life with this interactive game. Chica, despite her lack of words, had a big personality and it was on full display in this game.
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