Pic Squared

General Description Pic Squared is a fast-paced photo game. Ideal for bit-sized, casual play, it presents users with four pictures pulled from a news organization's photo library. Players must click the two pictures that relate to one another. If they choose correctly, they earn badges, build their winning streaks, and climb the leaderboard.

After each short round, players can visit the story from which the winning photos came or immediately jump into another round. Casual and simple, the game is a sneaky, fun way to engage game players with current events.

Technical Aspects: It would be built with HTML, CSS and Javascript. A limited game could be built without any server-side support. But with server-side support, games could react to the user by feeding him questions he's likely to enjoy. For publishers, the data format is simple. It will be easy to create and publish games. Publishers could fully integrate it within their existing workflow, or they could create games at whim with an external web-based tool. It doesn't matter what kind of playform publishers use. This is a small component that can sit outside any system.

Design: Designed to be light-weight and cross-platform, Pic Squared aims to fill those little pockets of time in a person's day when she reaches for her phone and craves a short, satisfying distraction. The simple game mechanic is extremely flexible, allowing content of all flavors to create games – from politics to sports, entertainment to history.

Editorial Aspects: Pic Squared leverages the taxonomy in a news organization's photo library. This way it minimizes the amount of additional work required to build each game. An automated import pulls in photos from a org's website and builds the day's game. A game editor proofs the pre-built games and tweaks to ensure they're solid games. P2 pulls users into news stories through gameplay and images – two of the most social and accessible forms of knowledge engagement.

Planning: Developing a releasable version of Pic Squared would require a small team working for eight weeks:
1 FT front-end/game play programmer
1 PT back-end programmer
1 FT designer/producer
1 FT artist

The budget would be approximately $75,000.

Team Members: Jacob Villanueva, art director
Chris Chang, developer
Rodney Gibbs, CIO