The first time I thought of making Birb Spotting, I envisioned a game very similar to Whac-a-mole, just without the whacking. A scene where different birbs would pop up from behind the foliage and the player would have to click them before they disappeared.

Birb Spotting in its current design still contains an element of this; a sighting is registered once the player clicks the bird. But, the feel has changed.

I soon realised that the original idea, the simple design, does not fit my wish to encapsulate the magic of bird watching. Looking back at my childhood, it was obvious. The game needed binoculars!

A darkened, though not 100% opaque screen over which the player can move their in-game binoculars and peer into the scene was what I settled on. Though not truly what happens when one peers through binoculars, it was a way I could create the feel of binoculars in the game.

But it was too simple still. Growing up, my bugbear when birdwatching was always getting my binoculars into focus. As a child, I didn’t quite understand it. Since the player is newbie birdwatching on a quest to beat his grandpa’s rival, I thought it’d be appropriate to make refocusing binoculars a regular annoyance.

By masking the field of vision with hexagons, it distorts the scene. Though colours can still be set apart. Is that the red of a robin? Or one of those berries? The player then has to focus their binoculars.

It took me a while to decide how I wanted to do this. I tried a slider, but it just seemed to easy and not very fun. I tried a clicker based one, which was too annoying and repetitive. I settled on a system that I believe is fun, a little mini game within the game.

Using a circle with an invisible sweet spot, which is located at a different position each time, the player needs to move their focus knob until it gets close/overlaps the invisible sweet spot. Ah! It is a robin! Oh wait, what?

To really ensure some difficulty, apart from the restricted field of view, initially unfocused view, timer, hiding birds, similar looking birds, different bird spawning rates (see last devlog), the focus of the binoculars is not certain to last the whole time. The invisible sweet spot moves randomly during the course of the birdwatching, which means it’s likely the player has to refocus when moving their binoculars too much. Of course, it’s not just a case of moving the cursor to the spot from before, but finding the new sweet spot.

I found this (re)focus system the right mix of fun, frustration, variety, challenge and familiarity.

Thank you for visiting the Birb Spotting Devlog and showing your support.

Dan (Webow)