Google ”Beat the Boot”
July 6th, 2011
Five games in less than a minute. How fast are you?
Case Study / Google ”Beat the Boot”
Google ”Beat the Boot”
Chromebooks are laptops equipped with Google’s ChromeOS operative system. One of its nice features is how fast it lets the laptop boot up. No more than 8 seconds is required to load your favorite websites quick and smooth. We were asked to help making people aware of this neat feature.
OUR ROLE
“Beat the Boot” is a collection of small but very challenging games racked up in a row to challenge your speed skills. Inspired by games like WarioWare and Mario Party, we developed a sequence of simple games that challenged users thinking and spatial skills under severe time pressure. The purpose is to manifest how little time 8 seconds really is and reflect the super fast Chromebook boot up. Our role was leading the concept development; manage the overall user experience and the execution of tech and design.
CHALLENGE
Three things: securing a high frame rate, creating games very fun to play and, at the same time, getting the message across.
SOLUTION
Users take on the challenge and play through five games, very individual from each other. In the end you get a high score that is published to the global leader board. We also added a multi-player option where users could play against other users, anywhere in the world. The vision was to make all games so fun and playable that they could stand on their own legs. So a lot of the creative effort was focused on the game play development. We also pushed the limits of HTML5, based on our previous experience from developing Bounce Ball to make the most out of the experience; sound effects and animations needed to be very in sync and responsive based on the users actions. And still maintaining a high frame-rate.
