Output details

Aquattack

Aquattack was designed and developed over a four week period and released on Sony’s global digital platform – PlayStation Network (PSN) to significant critical and commercial acclaim. Stockton undertook its creation as a personal project to look at what could be achieved in the interactive space within a very short time using only a small development team. The aim was to create a digital product which could be used to show best practice in developing play-like behaviour. Stockton had long had an interest in why people engage in play which appears to have no direct benefit to, or effect on, the user. He researched the most popular products inducing this behaviour and looked for commonalities and synergies. He exposed these products to user groups across a wide range of demographics. As a result he was able to identify what seemed to be the key drivers and themes of ‘addicting’ in interactive games. Stockton focused on the most popular specific ludic theme – that of ‘matching’ - to construct an original design for Mere Mortals, a leading special effects, postproduction and games company in the North East of England. The company works on products ranging from Oscar-winning films thorough to websites and games for the world’s leading publishers. Clients included BBC, Channel 4, Ubisoft, Microsoft, DNA films and the NHS. This research and the game’s streamlined development process significantly influenced the games development at the company and saw a turn to proven mechanic-based design in the interactive development of products.