Maurice Sendak’s death last last week got me thinking about the books and images that inspired us when we were making Tiny Tiger. I thought I’d talk a bit about how we arrived at the art style for the app.

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Recently we had the opportunity to give an introduction to our favorite platform, Cocos2D. We wanted to boil it down to the most basic and useful parts for someone completely new to the platform, and possibly games as well.

Our presentation consists of a short lecture by Scott, going over the basic concepts, and then I do a code walkthrough of an example “Fruit Assassin” game. All the files are available below:

Presentation Slides (PDF)

Example Code (Xcode 4 Project)

Intro to Cocos2D Tutorial Part 1: Concepts (YouTube)

Intro to Cocos2D Tutorial Part 2: Code Walkthrough (YouTube)

Thanks to our Japanese fans, and especially to kids-app.com for their review!

You may have heard the stories in the news about kids racking up huge charges in iOS games via in-app purchases. The latest is The Daily Show’s slightly exagerrated (but funny) story about Tap Fish, in which they talk to a kid who charged $1500 worth of in-app purchases to tend to his virtual aquarium.

When we first started designing Tiny Tiger and Friends, Aaron and I planned on including in-app purchase as a way to buy new outfits and accessories for the animals. We wanted to do things differently, though. It was important to us that the game provide a good experience for both kids and adults, and that included in-app purchases. (Sofia taps on ads in apps all the time, and I’m mortified by the thought of finding my credit card statement full of Smurfberries.)

So we embarked on an extensive set of designs that would provide the ultimate in-app purchase experience for families. It would be simple, fun to use and would provide security and peace of mind for parents. It took us a couple of weeks, but we did it. When we looked at the half-dozen screens we designed, we were proud that we’d finally nailed it.

But wait. A half-dozen screens? Was this really the “simple” experience that we wanted? We reworked them several times to cut as much as possible, but we kept hitting dead ends. Either we cut too much and reduced security, or we didn’t cut enough and it detracted from the game experience.

After all of that work, we realized that the answer had been staring us in the face the whole time: the simplest, most secure in-app purchase system for a children’s game is to not have in-app purchase at all.

We’re not saying that in-app purchase is bad. Lots of great apps use this feature very wisely. We hope and expect to have an app that does the same one day. But at this moment, we think they’re a bad idea for apps aimed at kids. Not only can in-app purchase worry parents, but it can train kids to expect to be marketed to in the middle of their play time. We consider “Tiny Tiger and Friends” to be part of your child’s world, and we’re protective of that. You wouldn’t let a salesman into your child’s room while they’re playing with their toys, and we wouldn’t either. 

So that’s why “Tiny Tiger and Friends” (and any other Curio Dept. app for children) won’t ever have in-app purchases until we can figure out a way to do it that meets our standards for families. We realize that we might be limiting ourselves commercially, but we feel that it’s the right thing to do.

Aaron and I share a lot of the same opinions about children’s books, games and movies, and we wanted our game to embody that philosophy:

We didn’t want to talk down to children.
Children are way smarter than we adults give them credit for! We wanted to respect that.

We didn’t want to require reading.
We knew that our audience would largely consist of kids who were too young to read. We wanted to have letters and words in the app, but we didn’t want words to communicate any instructional information.

We didn’t want to use voice over.
There were several reasons for this:

— We financed this game out of our own pockets, and we knew we couldn’t afford to pay for both an artist and a voice actor & audio engineer.

— As a parent I find that games which require audio to be limiting, since there are many situations (e.g., in a waiting room) in which the audio has to remain off.

— Audio instructions can limit exploration. Kids are problem solvers, and instead of directly telling them what to do we wanted to give them the joy of discovering the details of the app on their own. Our goal was to make the look and operation of the onscreen controls as clear as we could visually, so that the child could figure it out on their own. (To limit frustration, we provided animated hints on a timer.)

— We wanted to keep the experience voice-free. Picture books provide a very specific experience for children who can’t read: the verbal input they get is either in the voice of their parent, or in the voice inside their own head. This gives picture books a very special personal intimacy. One of my favorite picture books is “Make Way For Ducklings”. The only voices I associate with that book are mine (from reading it to my daughter) and my dad’s (who read it to me). Even though that book has been read by millions of people, as far as I am concerned it belongs just to me. We wanted that same kind of intimacy for our game. (Although we can’t claim it’s on par with “Make Way For Ducklings”!)

We wanted to make room for the child’s imagination.
Unlike many highly-directed kid’s games, we wanted the experiences in “Tiny Tiger and Friends” to leave as much room as possible for the child to bring in their own imagination. For example, we tried to give the characters enough life that they seem real, but leave enough out that the child is inspired to make up their own stories. Nothing would make us happier than to see a child put down our game and go draw a picture of Tiger or Hippo’s adventures. Like a picture book or a favorite stuffed animal, we want this game to be the beginning of something for the child, not the end.

We have a lot more we want to accomplish with this app, but we’re both pretty proud of what we have so far. We hope you like it, too, and we’d love to hear what you think.

Looking for a holiday gift for your favorite app developer? Build them a portable design kit! Sketching is our most powerful design tool, but to do it right you have to be able to do it everywhere. This is a gift you can buy at any art supply store for as little as $20. You’ll find everything you need after the jump.

The Basics

Notebook
Anything will do, but I am in love with the Behance Dot Grid notebook. Its dot grid makes it easy to draw regular shapes, but the light printing makes the grid fade away next to even light pencil. It’s like Tufte Paper in a portable form. The large size Notebook gives you lots of space, but I’m intrigued by the hardcover Journal. If you want something lighter and more disposable, I recommend Field Notes.
Dot Grid Book: $14
Dot Grid Journal: $16.50
Field Notes (pack of 3): $10  

Sketching Pencils
You can get by with any #2 pencil, but since pencils are cheap why not indulge? My go-to pencil is a Faber-Castell B or 2B, but I would also recommend 2H (very light) and HB (medium) if you want to do grayscale shading.
Faber-Castell Pencils: $1-$2 each

Eraser
Designing on paper is all about making mistakes, so a good eraser is a must. Don’t rely on the wimpy eraser on the back of your everyday pencil. You want something big and beefy. My favorite is the Staedtler Mars plastic eraser. This is the 30.06 of the eraser world.
Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser (pack of 4): $2.50

2 Blue Pens
Your run-of-the-mill blue pen is great for adding a little accent color to a drawing. I also like it for doing callouts on a sketch; blue ink contrasts well with a pencil drawing. You can also use it to take notes or scribble out a last will and testament if you are in a pinch. Get something cheap so you won’t be sad when you lose it, which you will.
Ballpoint pens: Free if you steal them from work

Pencil Case
You don’t want all of your stuff to get lost in your bag, so make sure you get a compact pencil case to keep everything together. It also makes it easy to find a pencil without looking—just stick your hand in your bag and feel around for your case. It should be long enough to fit your stuff, compact enough to fit in any bag you might carry, and thick enough so you won’t get stabbed by a pencil when you root around in your bag. Look for something in plastic or thick canvas with a single zipper, like the Kokuyo Actic. Tip: buy your pencil case after you buy everything else, so you can put everything in and try it out.
Kokuyo Actic Pencil Case: $15 

Book: Sketching User Experiences
Now that you’ve got your kit, you need to know what to do with it. For that you’ll need Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton, the seminal book on sketching UIs. There are lots of great ideas in here about sketching different types of user experiences, using everything from paper to video. A must-read.
Sketching User Experiences: $32  

Extra Credit
If you want to do paper prototyping, or if you just like to go the extra mile, consider adding these items.

Scissors
These came in handy when we were making our paper prototype at 360iDev. They’re small, light and easy to handle when cutting tiny things. Just be sure you toss them in your suitcase before you get on the plane.
Detail Scissors: $2.75

Thick sketching pencil
Some people (such as Jason Fried of 37Signals ) suggest sketching early UIs with Sharpies or thick pencils. This prohibits you from putting too much detail into your sketches, which keeps you out of the weeds. I splurged on the awesome Worther lead holder, but you can just as easily get by with a nice chunky Ebony pencil.
Worther Shorty Lead Holder: $12  
Ebony Thick Drawing Pencil: $0.65  

Black Markers
A handy thing to have if you want to add an extra color to a sketch. This set has grays in it as well, making it possible to do monochrome wireframes in ink.
Faber-Castell Artist Brush Pens: $10

Colored Markers
These are great for doing sketches in which color is important. My favorite are the Staedtler Triplus. The triangular shape means they won’t roll off the table, and they won’t dry out if you leave the cap off. (Great for kids, too!)
Staedtler Triplus Markers: $14