Snapchat Snap-Lens Studio

Challenge

Using Lens Studio create an engaging experience worthy of being shared.

Pitch

I began by pitching three interactive directions to solve the challenge presented.

The first direction, Swinging, is a fun lens that would bring awareness to the Lemur Conservation Foundation. The second direction, Aquarium, is to promote the Mote Marine Laboratory and marine life. The third, Puzzle, is a game inspired by sliding puzzles where the user has to recreate their own video as fast as they can to get a better score.

In the end, we decided to move forward with direction three. The Puzzle. We could bring a competitive side to the engaging experience and there are many health benefits to doing a puzzle.

Development

With this direction, I will have to learn some new things to make this game a success. The first being how to use Snap Studio. So I jumped straight in and began familiarizing myself with the layout and seeing what buttons do.

The main focus I have at this stage is to get the foundation laid out. I will need to learn to code as well because I have no knowledge of coding but wanted to challenge myself to add another tool to my toolbelt.

After meeting with my art director we were able to compile lists of things that I would need to do in order to get this moving along and we critiqued aspects of the design. Again at this stage getting the foundation set and working. You can see that I have a lot of things to get done and a lot more scripting to learn.

Setbacks

The problem is my lack of knowledge in the area of scripting and how overwhelming it seems.

On the right, you will see the moment where I got the video of the user to be tiled and sectioned off for areas of the face. Then chose a color palette and a font that would complement the concept of a puzzle where the user is the focus.

Solutions

To solve this setback I will be reading about the introduction to Javascript and using the forum page on Snapchat’s website.

Now at this point, we have the design and the functionality coming together. The background elements are also set to look nice but not distract from the puzzle. There is also added audio for when someone starts to record.

Setbacks

No way of randomizing the frames when someone starts the game.

The best score number at the bottom holds high scores that go up not high scores for games where less is better.

There is no option to put a start button on the actual UI in Snapchat.

The next step of the process was creating the design of the lens icon that the user will see when they open Snapchat and navigate through the lenses to play the game. And after meeting with the art director again we thought it would be added fun to bring animation to the designs in the background.