runnnin studios

the golden pineapple awards

Hello TEAM! That’s how we always started our game-design-sessions for weeks. On december 18th 2018 we convinced a jury of six people with our game-idea and we coundn’t be prouder. We even won a golden pineapple for most commercial potential! Who would have thought that an exotic fruit sprayed with paint could make us that hoppy!

Here some more info about the Golden Pineapple Awards.

such a good feeling

our game poster

preparing for the presentation

This is how Franz will greet you for the first time when you enter the world of BeerLab!

After a warm welcome from your neighbour you already start your own beer brewing journey.

user interface

We settled on an intuitive user interface with simple commands. Therefore everybody should be able to navigate easily through the game. The mechanics on the map are related to the gallery or photo mechanics that the player already handles on a day to day basis on his or her phone.

say hello!

but how is beer even made though?

let’s have a look at the first step mashing. Here you have to help the enzyme split the starch from the malt into sugar. The goal is to split as much sugar as possible to ensure that this brewing step is active for a long time.

you gotta be patient

tutorials?

Don’t worry be hoppy! Your friendly neighbor Franz always has an eye on you and is helping you with new tasks. As soon as you open the game he explains everything first. He is famous for making the best tutorials and gives you advise as soon as you reach a higher level. If you enter a mini-game you haven’t played before he will explain you how to play it. However, if you have forgotten something or want to know more about something you can always look into you book.

marketing plan

Is there a better way to make a game about beer public than on websites about beer? No. So we want to collaborate with already existing home brewing websites and forums like f.e. hopfenhelden.de, beerlovers.at and promote our game on their sites. But its not only promotion for us. We want to offer our users a list of homebrewing websites to make sure we can give them as much information about this topic as possible.

runnnin beer

player enjoyment

We have asked some of our colleagues about our game Here is a short summary about what they think:

Concentration The game grabs the attention of the player quickly, although he doesn‘t need to constatly focus on the game. Throughout the game there is constant workload, but the player will not be overwhelmed by it.

Challange The level of challenge increases as the player‘s business is getting bigger. He will need to focus on more and new tasks as the game goes on.

Player skills The player will be thought on how to play the game right from the beginning. Everytime a new feature appears in the game, a NPC will provide help. Therefore no manual is needed. The Player will also be rewarded with achivements throughout the game.

Control The player is mostly able to control on how he/she wants to play the game. It depends on the players strategie. The player can eighter choose to expand his/her business first an build more buildings, he/she can decide if he/she wants to upgrade buildings first or simply play the minigames inside the game.

Clear goals The goal of the game is simple: The player has to brew beer, to keep the game going. The NPC (neighbor) will provide help if you get stuck in the game.

Feedback The player will recive constant feedback from the game. Progress bars for example, will give information about ongoing processes in the brewery. Additional information will also be shown on the display.

Immersion Some processes in the game take time. Some even over a few minutes. Once activated, these processes will also progress offline. Therefore the player isn‘t needed to be online all the time. To progress faster, the player is able to use in-game currency.

Social interaction The game provides a global ranking list, where the player can see his/her and others stats. Through the username, the play can share his/her progress with friends.

just some other screens

just the basics of the game

you start in a little cabin and if you make good beer even get a garage for your brewing. But to get much bigger you need a beer-diploma from the institute. If you get it you have the possibilities to grow further, expand your little beer-world and even learn some chemistry with BeerLab.

runnnin milk

process

it’s fun to see how our ideas progressed and turned into something we are pretty confident about. we had some struggles with the colors because we didn’t agreed on them early on. Moreover everybody in the team made a really great job delivering their part of the work but each member did that in their own style. Therefore we had to make some adjustments: from the world to the screen-design further to the illustrations. We are proud of how it turned out now and are excited to present our game next week.

recently we found out that some of our colleges think of our game-idea when the word “beer” is mentioned in the FH. that makes us hoppy!