Paper dolls are the future for mobile game design!
Most mobile game designers follow a simple process when coming up with new ideas for their titles:
1. What did Nintendo do six months ago on DS?
2. What shapes could really do with being matched in lines of three?
3. Sod it, let's do a card game.
Okay, we jest. But it's fair to say that there are a lot of derivative titles out there. Maybe mobile games designers need to get more creative. Maybe they need to... play with paper dolls?
Elina Ollila from the Nokia Research Centre thinks so, and according to this article has been involved with several projects to test it out.
It's just one of her theories, with the advantage that game ideas can be tested out quickly, including player feedback. There is a downside though:
"The drawback of paper prototypes is that with them its difficult to test games where actions are controlled through temperature, the players location, or other environment-related things," she says.
Apparently, some of her methods are being used in the development of N-Gage games. Whether you use dolls or not, the player feedback element is important.
"At best, players are included in the design process. They provide the designers with feedback already in the early stages of the project when ideas are developed into prototypes".
Ollila's doctoral dissertation on these ideas - 'Using Prototyping and Evaluation Methods in Iterative Design of Innovative Mobile Games' - will be publicly examined at Tampere University of Technology next Monday.
We wish her all the best - if these methods can help designers come up with more original mobile games, then it'll be great for both the industry and consumers.