Research: The honey bee

Before I started to draw and design my main character (Bumblee the bee) I decided to research bees, in particular, the honey bee. I thought this research would prove invaluable, as it would allow me to understand bees' lifestyles and different characteristics across the various species. 
I have underlined certain sentences because whilst researching about the honey bee, these sentences gave me ideas about my future concept. 


The honey bee: 

Honey bees are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of colonial nests out of wax. 
Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees.


Bees' jobs:

The only bees most people ever see are worker honeybees and they are all females. They forage for food, build and protect the hive. These bees are females that are not sexually developed. Workers forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers), build and protect the hive, clean and circulate air by beating their wings.

Male bees are called 'drones'. Several hundred drones live in each hive during the spring and summer, but they are expelled for the winter months when the hive goes into a lean survival mode.

Bees live on stored honey and pollen all winter, and cluster into a ball to conserve warmth. Larvae are fed from the stores during this season and, by spring, the hive is swarming with a new generation of bees.

A healthy colony may contain 80,000 worker bees or more at its peak growth in early summer. 

Workers build and maintain the nest and care for the brood. 

The hexagonal cells constructed by the workers are arranged in a latticework known as the comb. The cells of the comb provide the internal structure of the nest and are used for storage of the developing young bees and all the provisions used by the colony. 

Comb used for storage of honey is called honeycomb. 

Workers leave the hive to gather nectar, pollen, water, and propolis, a gummy substance used to seal and caulk the exterior of the nest. They convert the nectar to honey, clean the comb, and feed the larvae, drones, and the queen. They also ventilate the nest and when necessary, defend the colony with their stings. Workers do not mate and therefore can not produce fertile eggs. They occasionally lay infertile eggs, which give rise to drones.

The anatomy of the honey bee:

For the anatomy of the bee, I found this image and an incredibly helpful website which details what parts of the bee help with in their day-to-day life. 


http://www.cyberbee.net/kids/bee.html#leg




Research taken from:
http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/insects/bees/honey_bee/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee

Read More

Research: Similar themed games on the market

Bumble Tumble:

Bumble Tumble is a physics-based game, in which the main player wants to collect money. Players have to turn the wheel and use the gears in order to make the honeycombs bash against each other and make the honey explode.

The graphics and bright use of colour work extremely well on this app, and has inspired me to use bright colouring in order to attract players' attention and add an element of 'fun' to the app.

Bumblebee Touchbook:

Bumblebee Touchpad is a great educational app that inspires young children to read more. Users can learn in a fun way by touching the words on the screen, then the app will say the word for the user. This game is definitely aimed at younger audiences, how ever a slight concern of mine is that this app suits a niche market and would have to be owned by a parent, as the chances of a toddler/young child owning an iPad is extremely slim. 

BumbleBomber:

BumbleBomber involves character 'Bumble' having to save the flowers from extinction by helping them through their pollen shortage. Players have to travel as far as possible (objective fits to my common convention game research in an earlier blog post: last the longest) and pollinate as many flowers as possible, whilst steering clear of obstacles such as 'bad flowers'. 

A strong point of this game is that it is simple, easy to use and has different game modes to suit many players' tastes. Using interactivity modes such as online highscores, and the option to beat your own best score, this app could be suggested as a strong game on the market in terms of 'bumble bee' themes.

Read More

Research: Target market

I have decided to create a questionnaire to hand out to locals around my area, in order to establish who uses apps, what's their preferred app game genre and other details that will allow me to begin to create a concept aimed at a particular audience.

Below is the document I will be printing out and handing to the public.


For optimum quality, please view the document in full screen. For some reason I am unaware of, the document has clipped off certain letters in this document. I can assure you that the document printed off did not contain these missing letter errors!
Apple Interactive Concept Project Questionnaire

Results:


I handed out 15 questionnaires to members of the public around my local area - from members of the public that went to school, some had jobs and some were retired.
I noticed that a large number of the public that had completed questionnaires preferred puzzle games and platform games and tend to play them during their free time. The amount of members of the public that had used an iOS device before was fairly balanced, with most users being younger. Therefore, I have decided to try and develop an idea specifically for audiences of a younger age, but make the app inviting for an older audience through making a puzzle game.

Read More

Research: Discoveries from researching existing products on the market

My next task was to research existing products on the market, in order to recognise common conventions in apps. Whilst testing out these apps, coupling my knowledge of other games on the market, I noticed a trend in most games I played.
All apps had 'Objectives' and 'Obstacles'. For instance:

Objectives included:
- Hit/kill something (contact) e.g. "Angry Birds", "Space Invaders"

- Last as long as possible e.g. "Snake", "Helicopter", "Pong"

- Reach a destination e.g. "Vector Runner", "Line Rider", "Frogged"

- Capture an object e.g. "Capture the flag", "Castle Wars"

- Create something e.g. "Tamagotchi", "Farmville"

- Become superior e.g. "Snowball", "Snake"

Obstacles included:
- Avoiding edges/keeping within boundaries e.g. "Helicopter"

- Objects that could hinder your progression into the game (enemies) e.g. "Pacman"

- Objects that could stop you from functioning properly e.g. "Mariokart" (special moves)

These factors I recognised whilst playing various games have been noted and I will be referring back to these notes when creating a concept for an app, as these notes suggest common objectives and obstacles that appear frequently within games.

Read More

Research: Existing products available on the market

I decided that in order to recognise what made certain apps popular, unpopular or controversial, I had to play some apps available from the App store, rate them and review them. In order to gain an idea on what different age categories thought about each app, I searched reviews online in order to gain knowledge on what sort of app is popular amongst different aged groups. This will help when deciding on what sort of target audience I will aim my app towards.
Please note that the following opinions are solely mine and have not been influenced by other reviews, opinions, etc.

"Fruit Ninja" - 3/5 stars.

Popularity: over twenty million copies have been downloaded from across all platforms (Apple app store, Android, Xbox 360, Windows 7.)

Genre: Arcade.

Developer: Halfbrick Studios.

Quick summary of the game: The player has to swipe fruit with their knife blade as the fruit is thrown across the screen. More points are acquired if the player swipes more than one piece of fruit in one. Players have to avoid swiping the bomb which will be thrown up frequently, if they do hit this, they lose a life (3 lives available before game over.)

Fruit Ninja is a fun, quick-paced game that encapsulated me with it's bright use of colouring, the fast-think gameplay and it's pure simplicity. 

The 'swipe' aspect fitted well with the touchpad feature on the iOS devices. This feature, coupled with the developers' use of sound effects, worked extremely well in combination with each other as it added an element of reality to playing the game.

How ever, after around one minute of playing, the game became monotonous and I soon quit playing the game after. 

I feel that that game could be improved and look more enticing to download if the developers added different scenery in the background, props, levels and game modes (perhaps a quick-time mode) in order to keep the player's attention level maintained at an optimum level. 

"Angry Birds" - 5/5 stars.

Popularity: Over twelve million copies have been purchased from the Apple App store.
Genre: Puzzle game.
Developer: Rovio Mobile.
Quick summary of the game: Players use a giant slingshot to launch birds into the air, with aims to knock off pigs sitting stationary on various built-up structures. The more pigs and structures knocked down, the higher the score.

Whilst playing Angry Birds, I lost track of the time fairly early into the game - it was immersing, addicting and loaded with personality, for reasons to be explained soon.
The cut scene at the beginning of the app was fun to watch and relayed to the audience why the birds didn't like the pigs (this app is infact based on the Swine Flu epidemic). I thought this was a great feature to add in by the developers because it personalises the game with the player, making them feel empathetic towards the birds.
The cartoon-styled visuals worked well in the game, as the solid colours were eye-catching and fun to look at. I feel that because of this, the game appeals to a player of any age, as the graphics do not appear dated, but fun and quirky instead, and the storyline based on the Swine Flu pandemic could appeal to anyone due to it's mass coverage by the media.







Tower Bloxx Deluxe - 4/5 stars.

Popularity: Unable to acquire at given time
Developer: Strategy/Puzzle
Quick summary of the game: Players' aims are to build the tallest skyscraper possible, by dropping a tower level onto another using a crane. Players face obstacles such as the 'swaying' of the crane.

 As I opened the app on my phone, the first feature that immediately caught my attention was the stunning graphics. The use of colouring on the skyscrapers, combined with the 3-D animations running smoothly definitely excited me.
Presented with different game modes, this game suits players of all kinds with all different tastes. For example, players with time to spare can play the "Build City" game mode, which instantly made me think of extremely popular game "Sim City", players who have little time to play can possibly play the "Quick Game" mode during a break. Therefore, I feel that this game suits many different peoples' lifestyles. The choice to choose a game mode also added a sense of freedom for me, which I feel is an incredibly important aspect to playing games.

Read More

Research: The App Store and it's users

Next, I decided to research the Apple App store and learn about the store's audiences and overall demographics.

I discovered that users on the App store are more interested in free games. Therefore, I could add a time playing limit or design a limited version of my app for the players that download the app for free. After this time limit finishes, there could possibly be a dialogue box/push notification could remind users that they could buy a full, paid version from the App store. I feel this idea could work well because it follows a similar convention of existing products on the market, this is shown through the statistic that 39% of 99.9 million free game downloads in the United States' App Store were free games offering in-app purchases.

Statistics to show the relationship between App premium and 'freemium' games:

January, 2011:
61% revenue from premium games
39% revenue from freemium games

June, 2011:
35% revenue from premium games
65% revenue from freemium games

Next, I decided to research the App Store's all-time most popular apps on the market. I discovered that:

All-time top paid iPhone apps are:
- Doodle Jump
- Angry Birds
- Tap Tap Revenge 3
- Bejewelled 2
- Pocket God
- Traffic Rush

All-time free iPhone apps are:
- Facebook
- Bump
- Shazam
- Skype
- Pandora
- Paper Toss

This research will prove handy in my next stages of research, as I will be playing various apps such as these, rating them and reviewing them to discovered why they are the most popular apps on the Apple App Store - this will be my next researching task.

Furthermore, I discovered that the most games available for download, fitted to the action genre (with just under 7000 apps.) After action, the most common genres available for download in the App Store was puzzle and arcade genres. It appears that the least common apps produced for download was dice, racing and music genre games.

These statistics prove interesting upon analysis because it appears that if I was to develop a game fitting to the action genre, despite being a popular choice for production, the App store holds a large amount of similar apps on the market and therefore, my app may appear cliche and uninteresting.
How ever, despite being less popular, app genres such as dice and racing apps could infact, suit a niche market and spark interest through being a less common genre available on the market.



Research taken from following sources:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/iphone-ipad-top-app-downloads/
http://bradkellett.com/p/itunes-app-store-statistics/
http://gigaom.com/2010/01/12/the-apple-app-store-economy/

Read More