Coming up — we’re gonna take a look at a game from someone within the audience and we’re gonna give them harsh, brutal feedback to help improve that game.
Mobile Game Audit & Comparison with Bumper.io
The game that I will play and examine is called Pool Ball.io, which is inspired by Bumper.io. The objective of the game is for you to bump the other balls into the pool table holes. The game is simple, easy to command, and easy to get.
I also played Bumper.io and obviously, the two games have the same main element. However, what makes the original game better is that it has a circular playing field, so you feel like you’re going to die when you’re on the edge while Ball.io’s playing field is just on a pool table which doesn’t give you the same fear and excitement as you play the game.
A lot of times, you will get inspired by top charting games and you want to do something similar to it and that is understandable. However, making one little change to it, as what I observed in Ball.io, won’t be enough to win thousands of players. You have to bring other factors into the gameplay to make your game more interesting and fun.
If I could summarize Bumper.io, I would say that it’s a combination of sumo wrestling, slither.io and bumper cars. The developers behind this app bring various elements of the three different concepts into one different game whereas Ball.io just pulled the exact concept from Bumper.io and changed the actual playing game which isn’t enough.
Also, with the pool table, you won’t feel the emergency, the sense of urgency or the need to actually survive because you are close to dying. You won’t feel the same fear you have while playing Bumper.io.
If you think of the big casual games like Crossy Road, Color Switch and Flappy Bird, you will notice the element of immediate death where you’re gonna lose the game after one wrong move and it’s game over. The creator revealed that they made sure to include the element of fear that you may lose on that first try. This element is noticeably missing in Ball.io.
When you think about this idea and you’re trying to play these different games, bring a lot of elements from a lot of different things. Don’t just copy the main concept and deliver a new game by adding a minor change because the users will not love it like the original version.
So, think through it and combine different elements that are already in play to develop a new app. If you do this successfully, you’ll experience the same success as Flappy Bird and Color Switch.