After bashing out a fair few ‘tap the gap’ images, I felt like the idea had run its course: people were liking them and even leaving ace comments of enthusiasm — WIN! So, next I decided to start looking at how I could expand on this and increase the longevity of the experiment.
I was working on a Super Mario piece recently for a book and it got me thinking about how platform games can be an ace source of inspiration. Take Outrun for example, the most amazing racing game ever (in my eyes at least) on the Sega GameGear. At its core is a background graphic that has a road weaving from left to right and a car (controlled by you) pinned to the bottom of the screen. Your goal is simple: press left or right to keep the car within the road as it weaves.
Keeping the Outrun approach in mind, I thought “why can’t Instagram be a platform game?” I mean, it has the method of interaction ‘Tap’ and the ability to house video. What’s more, it doesn’t use just any video though, it use a looping video! Perfect for gaming. All I needed to do was create a rolling scene which has the heart appearing periodically and pow! We’ve got ourselves a platform game.
To begin with I scribbled out some quick storyboard thumbnails of what the rolling scene could be. I decided on a few of my illustrations that would be pushing down the screen from top to bottom to give a sense of motion, each dropping at different speeds to add a sense of depth. The heart impact area itself had two instances, a normal version and then a bonus version. Why a bonus version you ask? Why frickin’ not?! Everyone loves an in-game bonus. Then, after a few illustrations and a bit of motion dabbling — the Instagame was born!