
Mucho Taco! - Game product
Role
_
Art direction, Visual design, UX/UI, Graphic design
Company
_
1 Simple Game

A resource management
and folkloric game
Mobile game product released on iOS, Android and Facebook by a creative agency and mobile game developer, 1 Simple Game (1 Simple Idea MX).
In charge of the art direction, visual design, UX / UI design, branding, concept art and 2D art design for this game product.

Teaser trailer edition by other team members of 1 Simple Game (1 Simple Idea MX)

At the beginning of this project, we were looking for trending gameplays in mobile games for children and teenagers, to later brainstorm a fresh topic that could come along with a game project idea.
After this research and sessions exploring different ideas, we concluded that the idle clicker and tycoon games were two game genders that were growing in popularity. Therefore, we decided to do a fresh turn by combining these two very different genders into one. Moreover, we also decided to go with a aesthetic theme that we considered could be very attractive and yet not so much explored in other games: Tacos and Mexican folklore.
The challenge in this game was to bring iconographic cultural elements that could make sense for mobile gamers that were inside and outside Mexican culture.
Furthermore, as a technical challenge, as the art director and UI / UX designer, I also had the task to strongly consider the limitations of creating assets for a mobile game. Assets that shall be as optimized as possible, so they won't demand so much processing effort from a smartphone and neither will take so much megabyte space.
For solving the theme challenge, we surveyed Mexicans, Americans and Europeans in order to find what iconographic elements and topics they related the most to Mexican culture. Moreover, we also found some reading material that helped us with this conceptual exploration, such as a book describing the culture, history and more in-depth information about tacos.

As for the solution for the technical challenge, in order to make the game as compact in size as possible, I decided that the art assets shall be done in pixel-art and in 16-bit color since this style was a very trendy for mobile games, good-looking and quite optimized.
With this, plus some competition audit and some surveys done to game development partners, we created our first prototypes. Prototypes that were tested by diverse groups, and specially tested by a game company that later became our publisher for this game.
Gameplay trailer showing interface and navigation
This Canadian publisher, Noodlecake Studios, provided their support on additional testing, as well as their experience on tips on best-practices in UX / UI for games in this gender.
Therefore, after many iterations on planning, polishing the UX / UI and testing, our team and the publisher team arrived to the point that we had a satisfying product that considered ready for the market.

Some of the visual assets I designed in pixel art for the game
Additionally, I also had the opportunity to design some of the social media post images, as well as promotional printed material for game development conferences.

