Elverys Rugby game

Live Promotion at ATU Galway with Game QR code in back.

I developed and designed over the span of a month, the end result was a web game that is being used as part of a marketing campaign for the new 2024/25 rugby jerseys.

I took care of the design, business, programming, and testing of the game.

I outsourced only the music and the 3D models of the game.

The game was promoted for 2 months from October 2024 to December 2024 and had nearly 4000 players over the span of 2 and a half months

For confidentiality reasons, I won't be sharing all the details or documents on the game.

Link to Game

Rest of the promotional set at ATU Galway

The Game

The game is simple, throw the ball and hit the target game. Where the player tries to get as many possible points in 60 seconds. to keep the gameplay interesting, the targets move every time they are hit, they also move every 5 seconds.

There is also a rugby player that comes out, and if you successfully pass to them then you will be awarded a double points bonus.

Graphical Design

The Graphics for the game were meant to be high-end mobile graphics, and I think we achieved that. I got a bunch of concept art together and made a brief for Jacob, the artist I hired for the project (more on him in the business section)

The inspiration was the 2012 FIFA games, which had 3D flat-looking graphics. I told myself that with the hardware and software improvements over the past few years, with Unity 6 being in pre-release and phones being able to run higher-end graphics, it shouldn't be an issue.

But I was mistaken after Jacob had started handing me the final FBX files, I started getting concerns from the client, they couldn't see the new 3D graphic I had implemented. It seemed to be an issue with iOS 16.5 and below, so I chalked it up to an edge case if people didn't upgrade their iOS to the latest version.

After a couple of days, I realized the issue was more widespread. I found this out as I started testing on a device emulator. This was when I decided to switch things over to 2D graphics, but I didn't want to lose the style of the game or the work Jacob had done. That's why I used the method I describe in the issues and road bumps sections below.

For the UI and text of the game I used the guidelines and fonts given by the Intersport Elverys marketing team, this ensured that the game also fitted their promotional material at events, where the game was going to be shown. I had to ensure that no matter the aspect ratio of the device the logos would not distort, this meant I had to grow my knowledge of the Unity UI system, as I had never dealt with compatibility on so many devices before.

Sound Design

The music reacts to the game to keep the player engaged and guide the intensity of the game. when the game is in the menus it is relaxed, when the player is playing the game the music is energetic, and when the player is in the final 10 seconds or gets the bonus the music is intense. this is important to keep the players engaged, the music isn't repetitious and always catches the player's attention.

To complement the music is the crowd of the game, the crowd is constantly making noise, cheering the player on! when the player hits a target, the crowd erupts in a cheer, dying down when the player isn't, hitting targets.

I accomplished the music and cheering via the in-engine audio mixers of Unity, to switch the music and the cheering all I do is lower or higher the volumes of the appropriate channels.

For the other sounds in the game, the player can hear the swish of the ball, this switch has a random pitch applied each time, it's not much of a shift but it's enough to not make the sound too repetitive, the same applies to the whistles in the game. each time the game starts, the player scores, or a multiplier is applied, the game players a whistle.

the start whistle is a double whistle, the score is a single whistle, and finally, the multiplier whistle is a triple whistle, this makes each event recognisable and unique.

Game Design

For the game design, I went for a simple, fast, and engaging design. I wanted the players to feel like they were in an intense situation and actually insert themselves in a stadium throwing the ball.

The first step was finding a fun game loop that was easy to learn. Initially, I went for a kicking-style game, where the player would kick the ball and aim for the rugby goals, the client wanted to pivot from kicking as they wanted it to align with their physical game of throwing a ball. So I went for targets being carried by drones. the drones are something that we see more and more in the real world, so it wouldn't shock players to see them, this is important to engage the players and make them feel as if they are in the stadium. The client liked the idea so we went off in this direction.

two targets were used to keep the gameplay fast-paced, if one was too difficult or at an awkward angle, then the other target could be hit. but the smaller target at the back offers more points, in hindsight, I should have decreased the difference as it means the closer target isn't worth going for if you want maximum points, this would have been noticed and fixed if it I had had time to do more playtesting.

At the 30-second mark, a rugby player begins running across the field, if the player passes the ball successfully, they are awarded with double points for 10 seconds, which can earn them up to around 400 more points than normal, 500 if they don't miss.

game being played and set ATU Galway.mp4

Business

For this project, I had to decide on a price to give to the client, in total I undercharged by 33%, this was due to me wanting to guarantee the gig, this is not only a start for my business, but also a valuable piece for my portfolio, and seeing as I'm still a student I think it was worth it. that said, next time I will take that 33% into account and make sure to decrease that percentage.

For this project, I had to hire 2 freelancers to work with me on this.

I hired Shane Murtagh to do the music for the game for that, I had to set up meetings and briefs to send to him. In total it took 4 weeks from start to finish to get three tracks from him, we went through iterations of the music and fine-tuned it to get what we finished with, and in the end, I'm really happy with how the music turned out, and all payments went smoothly and on time.

I also hired Jacob McConnell to do the 3D assets for the game, I wrote up his brief and outlined what i needed from him. over the course of a month he developed, multiple assets, the rugby players, the rugby ball, the stadium and the crowd in the back. the assets worked really well until I ran into compatibility issues, but I talked about that in the issues and road bumps section. In the end, all went well with Jacob and I can highly recommend his services.

In the end, I learned a lot about hiring people and how to communicate with them, I was familiar with briefs from my work at Bioviva, Dealing with payment was also a learning curve, and one that I'm still cautious with, I've kept all my invoices and details to make sure that all is tracked!

Issues and road bumps

For this project I had to dive headfirst outside of my comfort zone, first of all, developing a web game at this scale. I assumed it was possible and wouldn't be much different, but it turns out that getting the game to run on all devices and load quickly is harder than it may first seem. I wasn't familiar with the Unity addressable system, but thankfully there are many resources about it, I managed to utilise it to cut down on loading time.

Believe it or not, the final product has no 3D assets, only 2d sprites and sprite sheets, the reason is that the client was running an old version of IOS, and discovered that none of the 3D visuals were displaying. after 2 weeks of trying to detect when the visual failed to load, I pivoted to converting all 3D assets to 2D sprites. this process took time and a lot of reiteration, making sure that all the sprites weren't blurry, or had any artifacts that seemed strange.

Google Sites

Report abuse