A client of a NYC agency planned a sales training event with a Baseball theme. The agency asked us to create an interactive Baseball game to help train the sales team, and we had to make it fun!

Our first task on Tequin’s project was to visually create a stadium, two sets of players, and the complex user interface design. We scoured our resources trying to create a stadium from the unique perspective needed for our client’s game. In the end, we created our stadium, along with the crowd from some ten different images, compositing them together to illustrate our stadium. We created the scoreboard, the baseball field, and the user interface by using our illustration skills, making sure to match the look and lighting of our stadium. With the base design complete, we moved on to designing and finalizing the animation for the players, the baseball, and the user interface.

Like all games developed these days, our game was filled with sound effects, music, and we started our sales training game with the voiceover stating: “If you build it, they will come”. This voice over accompanied the starting screen with two buttons. One of the buttons was to review the rules for non-baseball fans, and the other was to start the game. Upon starting the game, the field would animate into view with sound effects, as illustrated in screens 1 through 4.

The actual game play, made up of questions and answers, was designed by our client who wanted a single moderator. That moderator would decide if a team’s answer was correct, while helping to inspire dialog from the sales people. To that end, screens 4, 5, and 6 show some of the game play dictated by our client. We see in screen 4 how the sales people can customize the name of the team and the team managers. Screen 5 shows how the wall animates up displaying a list of hall of fame players. Clicking on these names will display a specific training question. Once a name was selected, screen 6 illustrates how we display the question, and when appropriate, the answer. The moderator would then click the appropriate button, YOU’RE OUT for an incorrect answer, or IT’S A HIT for a correct answer, which is also shown on screen 6. If answered correctly, the type of hit a team received depended on the difficulty of the question, and we worked with the client to program the game to act accordingly. In screen 7, we see a very difficult question was answered, resulting in a home run. We can also see in screen 7 how we illustrated which team was at bat, the amount of outs, runs scored and correct/incorrect answers.

Screens 8 and 9 illustrate what happens when the answer is incorrect, with screen 8 showing one of several random animations, and screen 9 highlighting the hated Mr. Steinbrenner announcing 3 outs. Screen 10 illustrates men already on base running when a correct answer is given. We also volunteered a few surprises. When clicking on the Reggie Jackson, Reggie would animate across the field as Billy Martin popped out of the stands, and the scoreboard would show the Reggie bar, all while the crowd chatted “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie”. And finally… when the last hall of fame player is selected and the question is answered, the end of the game illustrates who won and the official stats of total hits, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and the amount of runners left on base.

The Tequin Interactive baseball Game – (Link)
Although our interactive baseball game was designed to run from a laptop computer’s CD-ROM and be projected on a super large screen in front of dozens of sales people, you can view the final version online. However, you must wait until the entire 5 megabytes has loaded, you will know it when you hear it, turn up the speakers and click to View Our Interactive Baseball Game!

And finally, we’re happy to report that our client was very impressed, and hired us for several additional projects, including several iterations of our baseball game.