Tamagotchi Pet Project
Tamagotchi has been around since the 90's. Many people have seen the game, or maybe even played a variation for themselves. In this class project we were challenged to make something inspired by the game inside of Figma.
Project Scope
We needed to re-imagine a tamagotchi game, and the device the game was on. The challenge was creating UI that was functional with only a few buttons. To ensure the user had options we also needed to create four menu options, containing at least two sub choices.
Squibble Story
A discarded lava lamp mixed with sewer water, creating Squibble, a glowing, intelligent slime creature fascinated by humans but too toxic to approach them. Lonely but curious, Squibble lived in solitude until a human named Sam fell into the sewers. Initially scared, Sam grew to trust Squibble, who guided them to safety and comforted them with its gentle glow. Grateful, Sam named the creature Squibble and used its collection of found objects to build a device that allowed them to communicate from a safe distance. Though Sam eventually left the sewers, their unique friendship endured, bridging the gap between their worlds.
Ideation
When I was given this project scope I went through many possible iterations of what my creature could be. I almost landed on a racoon before I started exploring ideas relating to sewers, and lava lamps. At this stage I began to sketch out possible screens and interactions between the user and what would later be named Squibble.
Squibble became this creature that was found in the sewers. To help represent that I chose a more muted color palette with a background that represent that damp and dirt area. I also began to think about how the application would function.
Running into Problems
The main issue I faced was with combining after effects and figma. Since Squibble is a lava lamp type creature I wanted to show movement within. This meant I needed to create the creature in after effects and move it into the Figma file. This is where I ran into an issue. Figma didn't want to read the transparent background behind the creature. Since this was the case I had to create videos for each possible interaction between the user and Squibble.
Figma File Setup
As I was creating the final figma prototype I had to ensure I stay organized. Since I was pulling in so many videos from after effects, I made sure they were organized by which specific menu they fell under. When moving along to prototyping all of my components and frames I made sure to stick level two interactions all together. Level three interactions had their own section, and were grouped by proximity to their specific sub classes. Components also had their own section to keep up with the organization.
