WallaceWare: Out of Pocket

WallaceWare: Out of Pocket is a parody game of the Nintendo series “WarioWare.” It is a small scale Unity project for my Advanced UX design class with two modes: free play and endless. Endless gives you an endless onslaught of randomly selected microgames, while free play lets you practice a specific microgame. What differentiates this from Nintendo’s existing WarioWare is the fact that the game takes place on a phone (hence the name “Out of Pocket”).

When I began the project, I immediately began coming up with ideas for microgames. My goal was to make them as funny and unexpected as possible. Since I had very limited programming knowledge, I set the scope of the microgames to amount to 10. Initially, I wanted the microgames to require different actions to complete, like tapping, scrolling, swiping, and pinching to zoom; Things you normally do with a phone screen. However, my programming knowledge was not advanced enough to incorporate all of those different actions, so I had to limit the microgames to just tapping.

After the ideas for microgames were completed, I began to figure out the structure of the game. It would open up with a main menu that offered the player the two different game modes. Free play would take you to a list of the ten microgames, and endless would hop straight into a different screen showcasing the player’s score and life count. I would use this blueprint to create screens and buttons with Unity’s animator. Once the basic wireframe screens are done, I begin programming.

The programming required a lot of outside help. I talked to my professor about helping me code 3 of the microgames and getting an endless mode started. With that knowledge, I was able to take the code he made and adjust it/clone it for the remaining seven microgames.

The final part, which was also my favorite, was designing the art assets. For this, I used Adobe Illustrator and didn’t stick to a consistent art style. Some assets were hyper-realistic, while others were outlandishly cartoony. Once these were finished, it was just a matter of getting user feedback. Most of my playtesters recommended I add instruction text before each microgame starts and also sound effects. I did just that, and the game was finally fully developed.

You can find a gallery of all the microgames and assets further below.