Sago Mini is an award-winning creator of app games for children that have more than 17 million downloads globally. On April 13, 2017, they launched the whimsical and creative “Sago Mini Town,” a new game that enables players to build communities and drove act like mini city planners. The game features the ability to establish roads, shops, houses, and even nature and then place popular and beloved characters from the Sago Mini line into those locations.
Jinja, Harvey, Robin, and Jack all appear in the app game, and they can be made to accessorize their outfits, drive cars, and even explore pirate ships and volcanoes.
Intended for Children between the ages two and five, the game includes no in-app purchases and is colorfully animated in a playful style that has become a staple of the Sago Mini brand.
Game
“Sago Mini Town” was partly inspired by the experiences lead developer Nik Aggarwal has while playing the “Sims” when he was growing up. Given the excitement of the “choose your own adventure” style of the “Sims” franchise, Nik wanted to create such a game that younger players could enjoy. “We wanted to capture the fun of building and to manage a tiny world without any of the overhead and complications usually found in similar games,” he explained and noted that although children are encouraged to build, the “towns” will not exceed one-hundred tiles wide.
“The width was originally around 20 tiles wide, and six tiles high, which we found too cramped especially vertically,” Nik explained. “Changing the height of the town grid opened up some breathing room and allowed us to zoom in a bit more, which helped ease of play. I am still a bit curious what the upper limit would be before kids would start feeling lost, but in the end, going with a reasonable limit gives them a fun goal to work towards.”
Production
Nike confessed that designing this game was time-consuming and challenging but ultimately very interesting and rewarding.
“I find distilling large concepts--such as building a city—down to a level that is approachable and intuitive for kids to be the most challenging and the most rewarding part of the job,” he stated. “It is fascinating to see how kids subvert our expectations on what fun is and how games should work.
The town was also a bit of a departure from our normal style of game, being more of an open-ended creative experience rather than a character driven one.
We also had a slightly smaller team than usual work on it, to help keep it simple and focused.” The production of the game took about five months and Sago Mini is looking forward to hearing consumer feedback over the next few weeks and months as they actively plan future projects. The game is available for download on both iTunes and Android.
