Demo of a Demo

File Icon/overviews/Which-is-Witch
The rather minimal start screen to Which is Witch. On the right there is 18th century cartoonish-looking artwork depicting a skeleton with a lyre grabinng a minstrals hand and pulling them forward. On the left there is the title of the game, Which is Witch, two underlined menu options of New Game and Exit Game, and the credits that say: A game by Megan Carnes, Cregg Hancock, and Zach Berglund.
Info
  • Mobile Game
  • 2023 (iOS and Android Release)
Role
  • UI / UX Designer
  • UI Programmer
  • Game Designer
  • Game Programmer
Tools
  • Figma
  • Affinity
  • Unity
  • C#

If the game equivalent of a music single is a game jam, and a full-length LP is an entire game release, then Which Is Witch is an EP. Which is Witch was initially made for a game jam competition centered around integrating Dolby Sound for mobile games. I was lucky enough to be the UX implementor for the winning team that was granted an additional funding-prize to continue polishing the game into a released demo!

This second stretch of development gave us the opportunity to more thoroughly plan out details than is typically possible in a gam jam. On my end, I used the time to focus on how we could accommodate players picking up the game from any point a previous player had left it. In other words, a demo phone could be in the middle of gameplay and we wanted to make sure a new player could pick up that phone, figure out what was going on, and then restart the game if they wanted to. In light of that, here's how I mocked up the flow of the game along with some screenshots of the finished product after:

A workflow chart of Which is Witch mockups. The workflow begins from the Start Screen, then if it's a new game that has been started it leads to the Intro and Help (New Game) screen before moving on to the main gameplay scene, but if it isn't a new game it goes directly to gameplay. There are three menu icons from gameplay that can lead to the Map / Town Selection screen, the Pause Menu, and the Intro and Help (Game In-Progress) screen. The relevant option in the Pause Menu gives the player the opportunity to reset the game, which then leads it to a reset confirmation popup that, if a reset is confirmed, leads to the Intro and Help (New Game) screen. The Intro and Help (Game In-Progress) screen follows the same process as that Pause menu option. The last option from the gameplay was the Map / Town Selection screen that gives the player mutiple buttons that represent each of the towns. Selecting any of the buttons leads the player to the Town Arrival Alert which is the same as the Gameplay screen but with an additional allert that fades out over time.
A screenshot from Which is Witch depicting the player and various villagers standing around a farm with a large church in the distance. All of this is displayed as if paper cutouts of were standing upright in 3-D space. The UI surrounds the gameplay and currently has the lyrics: to protect us from darkness.
A screenshot from Which is Witch depicting the player in the middle of accusing a viller. A popup on the bottom of the screen asks the player: Doth thee acuse this villager of witchery? With these two options to respond displayed below: Accuse the Witch. No, Keep Hunting.
A screenshot from Which is Witch depicting a successful accusation of a witch. Large text is displayed on the screen that says 'They were a Witch' and a witch can be seen floating in paper-looking water behind the text.
A screenshot from Which is Witch depicting the map screen. Large text is displayed in the top left corner that says: Select a Village. Three button options sit below with the text of Vestraboro, Valen, and Slelcoth. On the right side of the screen is a very rudimentary map depicting small towns for each of these three villages as well as a locational marker on Valen to show where the player currently is.

© 2023 Zach Berglund