Fuzzy Future Technologies

Orbeez – The Great Orange Escape is a strategy/puzzle game for the Apple iPod Touch and Apple iPhone. Our goal for this project was to design a simple but addicting game that could be stopped and started any time (ideal for using on the go, commuting) while at the same time being challenging enough to take many hours of game play in order to complete all of the levels. We also wanted to incorporate colorful game play and unique sound effects to create a game experience that was interesting enough to keep people wanting to come back.

Our Approach

Initially, we approached the creation of Orbeez from the perspective of, have I ever seen this before and if I did see it, would I want to play it? We wanted to build a gaming experience that was challenging both intellectually and also strategically. We decided to go with a very simplistic rule set for how to play the game and very easy to understand game board layout that allowed players to quickly get up and running with the game. Finally, we wanted to incorporate eye catching cool graphics and interesting sound effects into the game to provide a more complete mobile gaming experience.

Our Expertise

To accomplish our goals set out in the approach, we developed the entire gaming engine from scratch starting with the general layout of the game all the way to each and every icon and game piece used to play. To develop the engine, we used Apple’s XCode, Performance Tools (APT), and Interface Builder. We started by laying out the rules of how to play the game and then progressed to designing a complete gaming engine (written entirely in Objective-C on OS X) to drive the game from start to finish. In addition, one of our biggest requirements was the ability to start and stop playing Orbeez at any time. To accomplish this, we built a comprehensive SQLite database that tracks and stores a gamers’ progress. So, when you complete a level, Orbeez remembers and the next time you play you can pick up right where you left off.

Our Results

Overall, this project has been very successful both personally and professionally. Already, Orbeez has received thousands of downloads and was only released 2 weeks ago. In addition, we’ve had many compliments and reviews submitted to us about the game all of which have been very positive. We hope to expand Orbeez into a series of games, and release each one in succession to keep fans of the game always with a new puzzle to reason out.