Idle Camino
Platform: Mobile
Genre: Idle Game
Engine: Unity
Year: 2019 +
The game was made in Unity.
I designed the mechanics, concept, UI, and graphical elements.
The programming was done entirely by a programmer.
The target group and the journey of the Camino seemed a perfect match for this type of game.
Through user testing it became apparent that players wanted to relax when playing the game and tap all the objects in the screen, which we then deemed 'tappable' while providing points and combos.
A bit about the Idle genre
The first Idle or Zero-player game that was originally created at the beginning of the 2000s (Khaliq, 2015). In 2002 a game was created as a parody of the core mechanics in MMORPGs by Eric Fredericksen (Deterding, S., 2016). The MMORPGs were relying upon hours of players grinding and looting in order to get better gear and advance through the games. In Progress Quest (pkunk, 2002) the only player input is the creation of a character with a name and class. The rest is fully automated gameplay where the character is lead through a classic RPG setting, slaying monsters, collecting loot, selling the loot for money in order to buy better loot, and repeat the process. More games were created respectively as a critique of the “progress mechanics” (Deterding, S., 2016) and grinding loops. In 2006 Bogost created the game Cow Clicker (Bogost, 2006) as a critique of the tedium of games without challenge, which showed an unaccounted appeal through its massive success. The appeal has since been explored by games like Cookie Clicker (Dashnet, 2013) which also made a huge success. This eventually leads to a discovery of the genre by big companies who made highly monetized freemium games such as Clicker Heroes (Playsaurus, 2014), AFK Arena (lilith games, 2019) or AdVenture Capitalist (Hyper Hippo productions, 2015). What started as an artistic inversion of game design conventions to demarcate the boundary of ‘real’ games resulted in a sub-genre expanding rather than delimiting the category.
I wrote about this phenomenon in my thesis and have made a prototype of an Idle game as well: Idle Camino
Bonus Birds and animated characters
The game contains many different animals as well as different pilgrims. Some of these are animated. Here is an example of a small bird that rarely appears. When clicked it might provide a special currency that can be exchanged for special helping bonuses in the special shop. When the player has accumulated enough points a special bird frenzy might appear - giving a ton of birds aka a ton of changes for the special currency!
Cards and bonusses
Special cards are also presented throughout the game. These provide different elements. A permanent bonus is provided for each card as well as information about each city along the way to Finisterre. A stamp is also presented as well as a small symbolic illustration of the specific town area.
The waystones
Along the way many symbols can be found which leads the way to Finisterre. One of the most recognizable is the way stones which presents arrows, shells, an indicator of how far the pilgrims have to go, and more often than not a handmade message from pilgrims of the past.
Changing Architecture
An interesting notion about the Camino is the ever-changing architecture throughout the journey. This should be obvious as the original Camino stretches from Trondheim in Norway all the way down Europe and ends in Finisterre in Spain. The French Camino however also presents a change all the way from half-timbered houses in the mountains to the north, to dilapidated small Spanish villages, Great gothic Churches, Gaudi's masterpieces, and modern cityscapes. All of which is represented in the game.
Level elements
Many different environmental elements were created in the same style for the terrain to be differentiated enough for the player not to get bored.
