Design Challenge: To develop one of the first gaming accessories for the iPad that would turn the tablet into a face-to-face, tabletop game experience.

Solution: We developed the Duo Pop controllers to bring the edge-of-your-seat, heads-up game show experience to players’ living rooms. With one simple button on their handheld controller, players could buzz in while playing a variety of iPad apps. We focused our technical innovation efforts toward devising low-cost communication protocols with the iPad to keep the product affordable. Our solution was to use high frequency sound, inaudible to humans, to communicate with iPad. Duo Pop launched with a hero app, SNL: The Game, celebrating 25 years of Saturday Night Live. Other games designed for the Pop controllers were Highlights Hidden Pictures Countdown, Guesstimation, In the Know, and the word game, Swoop.

Favorite Moments: Highlights Hidden Pictures Countdown offered classic seek-and-find gameplay in an all-new digital format. As spotlights roamed the Hidden Pictures scene, players raced to buzz in when they saw a hidden picture fall under the spotlight. We were thrilled to see how engaged players were with one another and with the game as they played, offering a whole new multi-player dynamic to this classic activity.

Background: While employees of Discovery Bay Games, Shanon, Marisa, and Colt led concepting and gameplay design of the suite of apps that accompanied the Duo Pop device.