Toca Town - Not necessarily a child's play
Company: Toca Boca
Role: Play smith
Time: 2014
Team size: 5
Platforms: iOS, android
Users: Children aged 3-100, global release
Background
Toca Boca games are not like other games. They don't have timers, lives, points or high-score lists or rules for that matter. The idea is for users to freely explore and create in their own way to play. The inspiration always stemmed from physical toys. This time we wanted to create a digital version of a dollhouse. We envisioned a sandbox gameplay experience, where players could immerse themselves in role-playing by freely moving characters and objects around.
Usability testing
We did not want to assume what our potential users would appreciate. Instead, throughout the development of the game, I conducted usability tests together with a team member at different kindergartens as well as with children at the office. Seeing kids play with the app helped me better understand what to act on to enable more creative freedom and a more fun gameplay for players. Testers were also great at suggesting ideas for new features. Many of which we added in later updates.
A highly interactive environment
While I was mainly a programmer for the project, Toca boca was a much smaller studio in 2014, without dedicated UX or UR roles, so I designed interaction and took part in conducting user tests.
Through early conversations with players, we quickly realized that highly interactive environments are crucial to supporting immersive roleplay. Players have certain expectations based on their real-life experiences—doors should open, taps should run, and toilets should flush. By ensuring these interactions, we were able to create an intuitive and engaging experience that allowed players to roleplay freely and enjoyably.
Children fighting over an iPad about whose turn it is to play is not uncommon. We wanted to create a single screen multiplayer experience. I spent a lot of time making sure the game was fully playable with two or more players.
Create smooth interaction by understanding users intentions
The game contains a lot of items. Items come in varying sizes and can be put in a shelf, in a container, in a stack, in someones hand or even on someones head. To move an item a tap needs to trigger its touch area. Touch areas often overlap. I spent time getting the right size and prioritization of items touch areas to make sure that the games response to the players interactions always were in-line with their intentions. This work set the stage for players to get into flow.
Here you can see all the touch areas being used in the scenario from the video above. The measuring tape reveals the true size of the items on screen. The finger has roughly the size of a four year old child. According to Apples human interaction guidelines the smallest touch area is 44x44 pt which corresponds to approximately 7x7 mm. While children have smaller fingers than grown-ups some also have poorer precision, so we stayed with the recommended minimum size. Applying the minimum size for touch areas created even more overlapping areas. This made us create create a logical layer with a set of rules to help selecting the intended item at any time. With extensive use of usability testing we tweaked this system to better respond to players intentions.
Item recycling
While trying to mimic real life dollhouse a traditional inventory to store all the items felt wrong. Instead we pre-populated the world with the items. This made the environments feel alive from the start. All items had an original location and position the world. Whenever an item got consumed by being eaten by someone, thrown in a bin or flushed down a toilet, it got reset to its original position being visible the next time you entered that location.
Release and Reception
The game was featured by Apple on the App Store, in the US and most European countries, on its release day. It became the most popular app in its category in 20+ countries. It won an award from American national parenting publications (NAPPA). Downloads went past 10 million and children all over the globe loved to play in our little town.
The game was praised for being creative, easy to use, inclusive and inviting for players to engage in role-play.
Some reviews
A growing success
After I left the company, Toca boca continued to develop the concept with more content, features and themed apps and a growing user base. Eventually all these apps got merged into what today is called Toca Boca World. During the pandemic Toca Boca World popularity skyrocketed to a mind blowing 50 million users per month.
Even though it's a different game today than the initial few releases I was part of making, but the basic interaction models and systems that we implemented back then, is still part of the solid foundation that the game is resting on today, ten years later.
To finish of, here’s a recent YouTube short by user Toca Nina about two sisters' strive to become their parents' favorite child. Its view count of 8 million views tells that the game is still popular in 2024.
More creatively empowering experiences
Here are some other games I worked on at Toca Boca. Almost all of them were featured on the release day by Apple in Europe and the US. Together they had more than 50 million downloads and an App Store rating of at least 4.3 ⭐️.