"Smart Fish is an interactive educational game designed to allow players to gain knowledge and learn about many types of marine and freshwater fish. An interactive mascot called Smart Fish will help you along your journey to overcome various obstacles and answer quizzes to earn more points in the game."
Smart Fish Aquarium was the first game I had a chance to work on since I started working as a game artist in Yeylol Technology. The game had influenced me so much, that I actually started keeping real fish as pets!
The main purpose of the game is to increase children's interest in fishes, and hopefully influence them to become future ecologists or conservationist.
(So we were thinking too far into the future, and probably a little unrealistic, but our team mates often joke about the future conservationists and the good we're providing for the future.)
Smarty, The Mascot
We actually started with the creation of the game's mascot, Smarty, long before we decided on the actual game design. We agreed that having a friendly and cheerful special friend will help build children's interest in the game. One of my team mates happily took charge of the design.
The Fishes
With Smarty's design confirmed, we can finally work on developing the fishes of the game. Each fish would have four stages: baby, juvenile, adults, and special. These four stages would only be apparent in Idle Mode, a mini-game where players can indulge in keeping fishes of every species in the same (or different) tank, and put in different-coloured gravel and lots of tank decorations.
I was put in charge for the fishes in 'special' stage. 'Special' fishes need to look extra 'special' from normal adult fishes, by having a different color scheme or having more detailed scales.
Just 12 of the 60 fishes found in the game
The Story
"Cheerful and bright" is the style we decided for Smart Fish Aquarium, so naturally the story scenes should be as well. I did the illustration in vector format first, before passing the files over to my team mate who was in charged of animating the scene.
The first set of pictures serve as the opening story for the game:
After completing 30 levels of the game that focuses on marine fishes, the story progresses:
When players finish the entire game of 60 levels, they are rewarded with the ending part of the story:
We even decided to end the story with a little spoilery hint to our next developing game, this time with land animals.
Quest Mode
Because this was our first experience in making a game, we started out aiming to have every bell and whistle in the game. We wanted rolling clouds and swaying trees in the map background, but those extras proved too much for memory consumption. In the end we compromised with removing the tree and cloud animations, but we get to keep the waves.
The real challenge for me was to draw the background and trying to keep memory consumption low. Team mates were great in giving me input on the colours used and keeping the style intact.
Map 1: saltwater fishes
Map 2: freshwater fishes
As the story goes, Billy is on a mission to learn more about fishes. In every level, he starts with one new type of fish, and needs to feed and collect coins, while fending off attacks from naughty kitties, sick-inducing algae and coin-grabbing cockcroaches. The basis of the game is to achieve the goals set for each level. It could be getting a set number of fish before time runs out, or getting enough coins to start the next level. Smarty is always at his side, warning Billy of incoming baddies or expressing fondness towards Billy (because the fishes couldn't).
When the children help Billy finish each level, they get to read more about the fish's behaviours and habitat. We've chosen the most colourful and interesting fish species that aquarists often keep, and we like the idea that they can easily find and interact with the real fishes in fish shops and/or their home aquarium.
Bite-sized facts about interesting traits of the species of fish
Fishipedia, for the older children
Some of the assets that I had created:
Idle mode assets:
Backgrounds (the shadow is where the tank is supposed to be put):
As our first finished game, this was an extraordinary experience. I am glad to be a part of the team.