SEARCHPARTY is an synchronous local-multiplayer word search party game I designed while moonlighting with my programmer friend. Players race to find words hidden inside an identical grid displayed on each user’s device. A zap meter fills up as you play (fast if you’re behind) and can be detonated when full, inflicting chaos on all of your opponents.

We were inspired by local wifi games like SpaceTeam. Like many games I’ve worked on I did just about everything outside of writing code. However, my friend is not only a great programmer, he’s also a talented artist, so I definitely requested and embraced his feedback on design and art. The animal icons (which are great) were free assets we found, which I used to create the game’s color palette. I made them 3D for the feature image, but the original asset was the handiwork of a talented artist on Flaticon.com.

This title also tested very well at the St. Louis Science Center, but it was also shelved when life happened. We hope to revisit these titles in the future.