'Toy World' Mario/Pummel Party Themed Board
What Is It?
'Toy World' is a Toy themed board meant for party games such as 'Mario Party' or 'Pummel Party'. It was made in Unity
What's In It?
This project includes a fully detailed board fit for games such as Mario Party, with different paths, a variety of spaces and dozens of animations bringing this world to life
Why Do This?
Growing up with Mario Party games, I had always wanted to create my own game or at least a board to help pay tribute to memories it gave me. I had never had a concrete idea of what the board could be, until I replayed 'Mario Party DS' as an adult and noticed one of it's greatest attributes, that was also it's biggest flaw. After that, I decided to succeed where I believe it to have failed, creating my own board I think could belong in a party game of similar make.
What Did Mario Party Do Wrong?
Mario Party DS Didn't Have A Sense of Wonder!
In Mario Party DS, you are shrunken down to the size of an action figure, and play through boards made up of small objects to create worlds. It is scientifically proven that the fascination with exploring tiny worlds can attributed to several psychological and cognitive factors. They can include detail appreciation, escape and imagination, as well as it having therapeutic value.
The most important once however, being the sense of wonder, that being associated with seeing familiar objects scaled down to a miniature size, or in Mario Party DS' case, seeing them 10 times your size. When done right, it can evoke a childlike curiosity, tapping into the human desire for exploration and discovery.
By being scarce with their object placement, not having many moving parts and creating environments that otherwise wouldn't exist (contextually having no reason to be there), Mario Party DS failed at creating this unique sensation.
By creating a full, rich, bursting with life environment that makes sense to exist, I succeeded in creating this sense of wonder.
'Wiggler Gardens' The first playable board in Mario Party DS
Keeping The World Alive!
I managed to constantly instill excitement in the player by using dozens of animations to bring my toy world to life.
Somewhat similar to Mario Party DS, I wanted to not just shrink the player and place them amongst objects, but showcase a world of living things, contrast to what would exist in the real world.
These animations include toys moving on their own, whether that be vehicles, instruments or even people.
This effect I've tried replicating can also be seen in the digital version of 'The Game Of Life 2 ', or 'Monopoly Plus'
