Above: Some great ideas came from Ken Derry's views from his Chicago crane. Many Tetris-like games have been done before and the challenge for us was to create a variant that was sufficiently engaging.
Above: The general idea behind Tower Up was that the player would assemble falling building pieces and create a skyscraper. A hardhat woman overseer would give the player feedback during the game. From that we were left to develop the rules, the look, and the story. Inspired by the high vantage point of crane operators' view, we explored the possibilities of a curved horizon. We also pursued a more cartoon-like art, with bright colors and upbeat look.
Below: Coworker Rich's rough first pass incorporating key game play elements.
Below: Development of the main game art direction. I wrote the script for "Annie", the character who was moved from her cherry-picker perch to an in-cab video screen, describing her main traits and mannerisms to the modeling team, who interpreted her brilliantly. My favorite expression? Look for her to breath deep and roll her eyes!
Below: Development of the "landing" screen. From the landing screen the player would choose her game mode (easy, medium, hard). Since Shockwave awards ranks for successful play over many games and encourages a player to earn a cumulative score for all the games played on their site, we needed to work out a method of play in Tower Up that would lend itself to this system. From this sketch we decided the player was the first-person crane operator who could choose from three building foundations to start her game.
