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Game-Designing Duo
Noah Rosenfield and Danny Rivera create adventure-filled video games for mobile devices
GAME GUYS: Danny Rivera (left) and Noah Rosenfield look over sketches for their game.
Oh no! Captain Quill has lost his hat. To get it back, the pirate hedgehog must travel between the decks of different ships. But as the boats rock on the water, crates and other objects keep sliding in his way. Quill is the hero of a video game called Tilt: Quill’s Quandary. In the game, Quill gets around by curling up into a ball and rolling around. Players must tilt their mobile devices to move obstacles and guide the hedgehog through different challenges.
APP GAME: Tilt is an app that can be downloaded on mobile devices.
Noah Rosenfield and Danny Rivera designed the game. By day, Noah and Danny make games and videos for Science World and other Scholastic magazines. But in their spare time, they design mobile games like Tilt for smartphones and tablets.
Noah and Danny had different roles creating the game. Noah is a programmer, which means that he writes code—the instructions that tell a computer what to do. Websites, computer programs, and apps like Tilt all run on code. Danny is an illustrator. He drew Captain Quill and the make-believe world Quill inhabits. Science World spoke with the team to find out what it’s like to design video games.
How did you come up with the idea for Tilt?
Noah Rosenfield: In many video games, players share the point of view of a character in a virtual world. But I wanted to make something that felt like a digital version of a physical puzzle—like a game where you roll a marble through a maze to reach a goal. What I was thinking of didn’t exist yet, but I really wanted to play it. That’s why I decided to program the game myself.
PROGRAMMER: Noah working on code for the game
What steps did you take to create the game?
Noah: Danny and I worked on Tilt for three years. It took two years to come up with the idea and to learn more about game design. During the final year, Danny worked on the game’s illustrations and animations.
Danny Rivera: After Noah worked out the programming, he and I met for about six hours a week over six months to brainstorm and work on sketches. We decided that Quill should be a hedgehog, because this animal naturally rolls up like a ball. I made hundreds of rough sketches. Then I used a computer program to draw the final images.
ILLUSTRATOR: Danny drawing illustrations for the game
How does tilting your mobile device make Quill move?
Noah: Most mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, contain an instrument called an accelerometer. It detects the device’s orientation in space. For Tilt, I wrote code that communicates with a device’s accelerometer. So when a user tilts his or her device, the code tells Quill to roll in that direction. I also wanted the gravity in the game to act like it would in the real world. Gravity is a force that pulls objects toward the center of Earth. The software is programmed so that when the phone is tipped all the way to one side, the pull toward that side is equal to the full force of gravity felt on Earth. When it’s tipped halfway, for instance, the pull toward that side is about three-quarters the force of gravity on Earth.
PLAY TIME: Players tilt their device to move Quill to the goal.
Do you have any advice for aspiring game designers?
Danny: I would recommend that students take computer classes, including those that focus on digital illustration. Noah: Playing video games is a great source of inspiration. Anytime you’re playing one but wish the game did something different, take notes. Think about how you would improve it or make it more fun. Then go and make it yourself!