Game Design - Team Lead - Client Project
Abenteuer auf Burg Haselnuss is an interactive audio memory card game for children and families. Players follow Siggi through a magical castle and find matching card pairs that can be used as items within the story.
The project was created as an interdisciplinary university project in collaboration with EarReality GmbH and was built around their existing IP “Der Zauberwald”.
Project process
The client gave us full access to the story IP “Der Zauberwald” and asked us to develop an interactive audio game for children from it.
The concept had to work both solo and with multiple players, encourage replaying and be suitable for a possible later implementation with EarReality’s TWIST engine.
Our first goal was to understand the client’s requirements and wishes more clearly and figure out which direction would work best for further development. Several early concepts were discarded because they did not meet the requirements well enough or did not convince the client.
To bring new ideas together, we ran a mini game jam within the team and then combined the strongest concepts. A memory-game concept I suggested became the basis for the next version. We developed it further together and then presented it to the client.
We then built the mechanics as a physical paper prototype. This allowed us to test and improve card rules, item use, room changes and different gameplay flows early on.
Besides internal tests, the prototype was also tested with children from the target group. The core idea worked well, but it also became clear that they wanted a more detailed story. That feedback went directly into the next iteration.
For the final delivery, we created a complete physical prototype with memory cards, a castle map, a position token, and a fully developed room, item and story structure.
The concept included twelve connected rooms and 16 different card pairs. The prototype was then planned to be presented at the Nuremberg Toy Fair to gauge interest in a possible continuation of the project.
Paper prototype
The prototype represented the central elements of the game concept physically: memory cards, item use, room changes, the castle map and a position token. Audio integration was not part of our project scope.
Team & contributions
Concept, story, game design, mechanics, rooms and items were developed mostly through collaboration. Everyone brought in ideas, developed them further in team meetings and took on different areas of focus during production.
The game
The familiar memory mechanic forms the physical core. The objects players find only gain their actual function through the audio story.
Players follow Siggi through Burg Haselnuss. Each room presents a new challenge where an item from Baumwart’s magic box may be useful.
The items are placed face down as matching pairs. When a pair is found, the players can decide whether that item should be used in the current situation.
My contribution
I took on the team lead role and a large part of the communication with the client and the people involved at EarReality.
At the same time, I worked directly on the game concept, the mechanics and parts of the story and room structure.
Reflection
Beyond the game design itself, the project taught me a lot about turning a client’s requirements into a concrete product as a team.
The first discarded concepts showed how important it is to turn requirements into clear design goals and testable decisions early on.
The paper prototype helped make problems in the rules and game flow visible early, before more work went into fleshing everything out.
Information from meetings, chats and different boards should come together in one clear project source wherever possible, so decisions and responsibilities stay visible to everyone.