Alien and Balloon Concept

Alien and Balloon

Concept Statement:

In Alien and Balloon the player controls a little UFO to hit away any objects in a tornado using power ups and other means to prevent them from popping a rising balloon.

Genre or Category

Genre or Category: Physics based/Arcade

Concept Creation Process/Area and Influences:

This game is heavily influenced by a mobile game named Rise Up in which you protect a balloon using your finger to knock physics based objects away from the balloon. I aimed to build on the gameplay of Rise Up by adding power-ups to add onto the player experience and add some more replayability and different interactions with the obstacles put in place.

Audience and Competitive Analysis

Audience: Casual gamers

Competitive Analysis: The main competitor is the game Rise up, which is a very successful mobile game  with over 100 million downloads on google play. While Rise Up has a great gameplay loop there is not much variety in the obstacles and gameplay. Alien and Balloon also has more colourful graphics rather than the minimalistic design that Rise Up has. While this game appeals to a casual audience, it creates heavy competition from mobile games like Candy Crush, Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja which offer alternative casual experiences which grab players attention and playing time. My game relies on the physics gameplay paired with the fresh twist with the addition of power ups to enhance replayability and to provide players with different challenges and other strategic decisions. This approach aims to gain players who are looking for a more engaging  experience.

Game Treatment and Concept Art

Game Treatment:

Alien and Balloon involves a balloon forever going up a tornado with objects constantly falling down threatening to hit the balloon. The objects include girders, trees, tools, boxes and much more in great looking pixel art graphics. The only prevention you have is a little UFO that you control to hit the objects away and power ups to help protect the balloon and upgrade the UFO. Power ups include:

• Shield: A shield that makes the balloon invincible for a short period of time causing the objects to bounce off it
• Enlarging potion: Makes the UFO bigger, making it easier to hit objects away and protect the balloon
• Shockwave: Gives you the opportunity to send out a large shockwave pushing all objects on screen away
• Laser Defence System: Destroys all objects that come in contact with the UFO

Alien and Balloon uses the physics system in unity to hit the objects away from the balloon making it very satisfying to hit away objects, also with the inclusion of power ups it creates different scenarios each playthrough making it fun each time you play it.

References: Rise Up: Balloon Game. 2017 Mobile. Casual Azure Games:

Microsoft image generator for the concept art