Players have 30 seconds to unscramble a word puzzle that matches the photo behind the ripple. As time progresses, the ripple clears up, making the puzzle easier.
A few examples of Ripples. As time progresses, they become less distorted. The ripple effect is rendered realtime with webGL.
Loop brought me on in 2024 to design the game, which we then passed to Samsung to develop internally. The first game I designed for them, The Six, performed so well with users that Samsung decided to invest more into their gaming division. As a result, they asked us to design 3 more games for their TVs. The general concept we proposed for Game 2 was "picture reveal."
The intro animation that plays when you press start. Kevin Shand once again did an incredible job with the sound design! Make sure you unmute.
Ripplash has 3 new puzzles daily, so we chose to use stock photos to generate them since they're easy to source and look funny distorted. They're also highly customizable for sponsored puzzles (SUNGSAM GAYLAX DOLF anyone?).
The UI for a ripple. Press the center button on your remote to lock in the selected letter. Samsung wanted to add the hint but I think it makes the puzzle too easy.
I came up with the concept of the ripple displacement (and "Ripplash") after experiments that only uncovered the image turned out too easy. Turns out it's very easy to guess "watermelon" from very few pixels. With ripples, we could increase the starting distortion to set the difficulty.
The animation that plays when you complete all three puzzles
It was obvious that the visual direction should be water themed, but I didn't want to go too literal
(all blue, waves everywhere, etc). I focused on the refraction caused by the water and used it to
distort the solid colors underneath. I picked the primary colors to represent the difficulty levels,
and they gradually became the brand colors.
It was also fun to design around each level being contained in
a bubble, which is why the level intro videos show shuffling images within the water bubble and the
title screen has 3D objects suspended in bubbles.
The animation that plays when you run out of time on the current puzzle
For the brand's typography, I opted for a bubbly, fun, yet "futuristic" y2k look. Since a "guess the picture" style game is more appealing to kids, I wanted the brand to be brighter and more playful than The Six was. It was also important that it look good on Samsung's TVs!
The font I designed for the game
Ripplash is available to play on all Samsung TVs made from 2022 to now. It now comes pre-loaded on every Samsung TV! Insane. If you have one, check the gaming tab!
Samsung requested we add trivia tidbits to read about each puzzle after you finish, like there are in The Six
Huge shoutout to the team at Loop (especially Ness, Nick, Kevin, and Josiah!) for asking me to work on Ripplash! It's truly crazy to think about how many people see my work on their TVs now. Thanks for reading!
