Say Viget, The Game

Viget is an awesome company with a strange name. It (roughly) means "flourishes" in Latin. But, unless you're a Latin scholar, knowing how to pronounce "Viget" can be difficult (and, even if you are, there is debate). So, in 2005 we created a website dedicated to teaching you how we have always said it, ever since it was just a code word selected by our original founder. And, while the old site served this purpose very well, it needed an update.

We Made A Game

Welcome to the new Say Viget: The Game. You play as the hero lab-rat trying to get to the cheese at the end in record time. For every five coins you collect you receive the positive reinforcement of how to say "Viget." You only get three lives, so avoid the spikes and don't fall off the platforms!

Brainstorm and Process

We had a few ideas before deciding to make a game. We debated creating a mini-site or a one-pager, but scratched both ideas as being "too 2012." After much deliberation, we decided that a game was a perfect fit for our team.

One of the early challenges we faced was creating a game that fulfilled the core purpose of Say Viget  -- teaching visitors how to pronouce "Viget." We had to collaborate closely to strike a balance between features that would reinforce our purpose and fun features that might distract from it. Then, while the design and UX teams strategized, illustrated, and iterated on concepts and features for the game, I was busy prototyping, building a world (literally), and coding a foundation from which it could grow. Before launch, multiple sessions of walking through the game and refining interactions helped us achieve a consistent and purposeful gameplay experience. 

In The End

This project helped us become even better at collaborating and pushing each other in a creative direction. We realized (again) that sometimes building something just because and pushing ourselves to learn something new really is the best way to grow. It was certainly a ton of fun. With that in mind, we hope you have as much fun playing Say Viget as we did making it. 

More to Come

We plan to go into more detail about what went into making the game, the technical and coding challenges we faced, and third-party libraries that helped us. If you're interested learning something in particular about game development (or if you have something to teach us!), leave a comment and let us know!