eJaw – Gnomes Garden Case Study
Gnomes Garden is a charming and imaginative mobile game that has captivated audiences worldwide. Developed by the talented team at eJaw, this delightful strategy time-management title transports players into a whimsical fairytale universe. Through stunning visuals, engaging storytelling, and innovative gameplay, Gnomes Garden stands as a shining example of eJaw’s prowess in crafting exceptional mobile experiences.
Game Overview
Gnomes Garden is a delightfully whimsical strategy time-management game that transports players into a fairytale world on their mobile devices. Developed by eJaw, this charming title immerses you in its world through:
Storybook Narrative
– Follow the tale of a brave princess striving to restore her kingdom’s cursed, overgrown garden to its former glory using the mysterious power of magical seeds.
Gameplay Progression
– Progress through 40 hand-crafted levels, each introducing new obstacles, tools and objectives to master.
– Strategically plan removal of blockages, repair buildings/bridges, and construct new garden facilities.
– Upgrade your abilities and efficient resource management is key to succeeding.
Best-in-Class Polish & Production
– Masterful hand-drawn art style with breathtaking environments and delightful character animations.
– Intuitive mobile touch controls seamlessly blended with the time-management gameplay.
– Memorable soundtrack and humor-filled story and character dialogue bring the fairytale universe to life.
Widespread Availability
– Originally launched on iOS and Android, reaching a wide mobile audience.
– Subsequently ported to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, PC & Mac for expanded platform reach.
Case Development Cycle
From initial conception to the worldwide launch across multiple platforms, Gnomes Garden went through eJaw’s full-scale professional development process:
1. Prototyping – Created explorable gameplay prototypes and storyboards to validate the core concept.
2. Pre-Production – Solidified creative pillars like story, art style, game design with extensive documentation.
3. Asset Creation – Highly-skilled artists elaborately crafted characters, environments, visual effects, animations and more.
4. Engineering – Leveraging their technical expertise, engineers programmed gameplay systems, UI, controls, and handled platform ports.
5. Quality Assurance – Rigorous testing, polishing and refinement through multiple QA cycles.
6. Marketing & Publishing – Go-to-market strategies like trailers, store ops, media promotions planned and executed.
7. Live Operations – Post-launch, the game is supported with patches, events, and potentially bonus content updates.
Overcoming Key Challenges
One big challenge eJaw faced with Gnomes Garden was making the detailed artwork and animations look really good on mobile devices. The game has an intricate, hand-drawn art style with premium character designs, animations, and environments. Optimizing and displaying all these detailed visuals smoothly on a wide range of mobile device hardware was difficult and required skilled artists and engineers.
Another key challenge was creating touch controls that worked well with the time-management gameplay. Players needed to be able to easily navigate menus, select objectives, and perform actions quickly and accurately using touch on mobile screens. Getting these controls to feel just right and mesh seamlessly with the gameplay took a lot of design iteration and testing.
With Gnomes Garden being made for multiple platforms beyond just mobile, ensuring the game ran consistently well across PC, consoles, and other devices was critical. Engineering the game’s systems to perform optimally no matter what device it was on while still looking and playing great was a tough technical obstacle.
Finally, designing satisfying long-term progression and rewarding gameplay loops to keep players hooked was an important task. The team needed to craft an enjoyable difficulty curve, meaningful upgrades, and enticing pacing of new content. These elements were aimed at motivating players to stick with Gnomes Garden’s charming world for the long haul instead of losing interest.
Game Value
Through making Gnomes Garden, eJaw provided excellent value to their client 8 Floor Games:
Full Creative Delivery – They took a unique game concept and turned it into a brilliant, fully-realized game world and experience.
Outstanding Production Quality – They combined great storytelling skills with ingenious gameplay design and top-notch audio/visual artistry.
Proven Commercial Success – The game was a big hit that made strong revenues and could become a multimedia brand for the publisher.
Ongoing Support – They continue updating and supporting the game, with opportunities to expand its game universe further over time.
eJaw’s creativity and high-quality game development allowed them to bring the charming Gnomes Garden world to life as an incredibly fun and polished experience that delivered tremendous value to their client. Their work demonstrates their talents in executing an original premise into a successful commercial product through skillful production.
With Gnomes Garden’s delightful fairytale world, vibrant characters and innovative mobile time-management gameplay, eJaw’s passion for exceptional game development shines through. Their creativity and technical prowess allowed them to breathe life into this rich universe kept alive by an incredibly fun and engaging game experience.
