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Project Overview

Mogo (Monkey 173) has escaped from the Aztec Toilet Paper Testing Facility and is back to shut it down for good. Help Mogo infiltrate the factory and exact his revenge on the evil mastermind, Marquis DePooPoo, who is destroying the Aztec Jungle one roll of toilet paper at a time.

This puzzle adventure game combines Worms-style pixel destruction with Angry Birds-style physics. You can blast away at rocks and trees, knock things over, trigger mechanisms to solve devious puzzles, and uh, make the monkey throw explosive poo (What? Our players liked it).

Organisation

Gametraders

Team

The project was a combination of Gametraders, an Australian owned retail computer games franchise, and Enabled Solutions, a leading Australian creative cross-platform development agency.

Project Brief

What led to the release of this fun-filled game packed full of explosive fruit, a monkey on a mission, and a good old fashioned arch nemesis?

Our goal was to create a fun and addictive game that people would want to download. It was our first attempt to get our foot in the door of game publishing, and all good games are fun and addictive.

We gave the brief to Enabled, and Mogo the Monkey was born. The plan is to monitor his success and hopefully create more games featuring the cute, lovable (and vengeful) mascot.

Project Innovation / Need

Mogo possesses the key characteristics of fun games. The beautiful hand painted graphics are charming and easy to stare at for as long as you like. The game has that “one more go” addictive nature and this is complemented by a fun story line that many puzzles or physics based smartphone games tend to lack. You want to know how the story ends. You laugh at the dialogue between the characters. And you want to kill Marquis DePooPoo just for his terrible puns. This is a key to good game development: getting the players to not only love the interaction with the mechanics of the game, but the characters within the game as well.

From a company perspective, Mogo the Monkey represents our first foray into game publishing, and presents some interesting opportunities for connecting with our customers in novel ways.

User Experience

Players take Mogo through eight unique levels from the jungles of Aztec to the creepy lair of Marquis DePooPoo. Each level begins and ends with story dialogue that adds another dimension to the game and gives users more incentive to keep playing - they want to know how the story ends. Mogo is such a fun character that you can’t help becoming attached to him as the game progresses, and Marquis DePooPoo is so evil that you can’t wait to blow him up.

But it’s not easy. Players have to use physics, strategy, timing, and an arsenal of explosive fruit (and poo) to solve puzzles and blow away obstacles in Mogo’s path. Weapons like the parachute bomb require you to master the iPhone’s accelerometer while destructible terrain lets you literally carve your way to revenge. There are also tons of cool mechanisms to explore, including conveyor belts, toilet paper assembly machines, crocodile gods and spinning razors.

The result is a fun game that leaves users wanting more... which is good because Mogo is itching to go on more adventures.

Project Marketing

The marketing, like the game has a unique flavour to it. Gametraders has 30 retail outlets and are promoting the game in stores with posters and flyers to customers. We are also promoting the game to our 70,000 plus customer-base and 25,000 Facebook fans (across head office page and store pages). Mogo will also be featured in Gametraders’ August catalogue that goes out to 130,000 homes.

In addition, Gametraders are advertising on Facebook with paid ads, AdMob, and a series of press releases have gone out across Australia and the U.S. For the first month, Australian players over the age of 18 who complete the game and collect all the Gold Bananas qualify to enter a draw to win around $2000 in prizes, including a 40” Samsung LED TV, a Playstation 3, and a Gametraders Gift Card.

To date, the game has been featured in the Apple iTunes store as “New and Noteworthy” in over 70 countries and “What’s Hot” in a few more. Apple’s App Store even mentioned it on their Facebook and Twitter pages too.