TRANSFORMERS PUZZLE GAME

At Zappar, Nestlé approached us to create a Transformers game for the back of various cereal boxes.

We had significant creative freedom, but our main challenge was to develop a game that remained authentic to the new Transformers film despite having limited assets. Since the movie was still in production, we were provided with only a few character poses and a couple of backgrounds.

The concept needed to focus on building and transformation, so we decided to create a 3D puzzle game where players could assemble key Transformers characters.

As part of the cereal box promotion, children could cut and fold paper toy versions of the Transformers to create their own 3D robot. Inspired by these blocky designs, we used their textures to create puzzles featuring the characters' heads, arms, bodies, and legs.

This is the Optimus Prime version of the paper toy;

The objective of the game is to complete five puzzles to assemble a Transformers robot.

Each puzzle consists of a rectangular prism divided into two sections. One side of each section is designed to link perfectly with the other, forming a complete rectangular prism.

To connect the pieces, the player taps a section and rotates it vertically and horizontally until the two facing sides align correctly. Since all sides share the same texture, determining the correct orientation can be challenging. As the difficulty increases, more complex linking sections appear, making it even harder to visualise how the pieces fit together.

The player is timed on each puzzle, with faster completion earning a higher star rating. The longer they take, the lower their final score.

As with every product I design a low fidelity user flow to focus purely on the mechanics of the idea, please take a look below;

To give the experience a more premium feel I designed the splash to be a parallax scrolling page where the three key characters animated into the futuristic Transformers scene. I created this background and the smoke elements.

The instruction shows the actual game in situ where Optimus Prime guides the user through the various controls. Each robot puzzle has a background unique to them and all of the VFX is tinted to add an extra bit of finesse to the experience. I created all of the elements in these screens other than the 3D block.