June's Journey
| June's Journey | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Wooga | ||
| Publisher | Wooga | ||
| Senior Developer | Georg Baumgarte | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
5th October 2017 | ||
| platform | Android , Facebook , iOS | ||
| genre | Hidden object game | ||
| medium | Download , Facebook - Application | ||
| language | 16 languages including German | ||
| Age rating |
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June's Journey (English; in German about Junes Weg or Junes Reise ) is a computer game by the German game developer and publisher Wooga . The hidden object game was published in 2017 on Facebook and for mobile devices with the Android and iOS operating systems .
action
Chapters 1-6
June's Journey takes place in the late 1920s. The former nurse June Parker returns to the family home on the fictional Orchid Island near New York due to terrible news from London: Her sister Clare van Buren and her husband Harry are dead, apparently as a result of an extended suicide . Everything indicates that Harry shot his wife first and then himself. June wants to take care of their daughter, her niece Virginia. However, she discovers some inconsistencies. Virginia presents a crime scene photo on which three used whiskey glasses can be seen next to Harry's corpse - whether a third person was in the room at the time of death was not investigated by the police. Together with Virginia, June sets out to investigate the background to the crime. The two quickly find out that Harry van Buren was involved in illegal business and had contacts with the Mafia. Two of the characters June comes across during her investigation are the writer and pilot Jack Hayes, with whom she is dating, and the FBI agent Sam Watts, who is ostensibly investigating the murder but has a long history with the van Buren couple . June finally finds out that Watts not only had an affair with Clare van Buren, but is even the father of her daughter Virginia and killed the van Buren couple in order to have their daughter for themselves. Watts kidnaps Virginia to Cuba , but June takes up the chase and catches the killer.
Chapters 7-12
Since Virginia has problems reintegrating into everyday life after the death of her parents, June travels with her to Paris to visit her old friend Amelia Dumas and to give Virginia a break. Amelia runs a painter's studio with her partner Pascal Moreau and is in trouble: In order to keep afloat financially, they both created fakes and sold them to the painter and gallery owner Silvio Santini, who they know. For some time the two have been blackmailed with it. A few days before June's arrival, Pascal was supposed to give the blackmailer a suitcase with money and has since disappeared. Events come thick and fast: Santini implies that he knows about the forgeries of Amelia and Pascal and thus makes himself suspect as a possible blackmailer, but accuses Moreau of having stolen a valuable painting from his gallery. Then June and Amelia find Pascal's body, the cause of death cannot be clearly established. A business partner of Santini turns out to be a blackmailer, but he does not want to have anything to do with the theft of paintings and Pascal's death. June starts the investigation and is able to trace the perpetrator to Cortona in Tuscany . There the painting thief turns out to be Luca Russo, son of the late painter Cesare Russo, who was Santini's teacher. The untalented Santini had passed off and sold Russo's paintings as his own in Paris, including The Piazza of Love . Moreau had died in an accident through no fault of her own. Back in Paris, June smuggles forged pictures of Amelia into an exhibition opening in Santini, thereby permanently discrediting him.
Game principle and technology
The core element of June's Journey is that of a hidden object game: numerous objects are integrated into hand-drawn pictures (so-called hidden objects). The player has to work through a list of objects, find them in the respective picture and tap or click on them. Once the list has been processed, the picture is considered "done". After a certain number of pictures, the player receives a reward box with content relevant to the game. In June's Journey , the individual images are integrated into the framework story, for example the first hidden objects depict the premises of the property on Orchid Island, while later images show scenes in New York or Havana . The game is divided into chapters, which in turn are divided into sequentially accessible rooms.
June's Journey further contains elements of a structure of the game : The garden around the property on Orchid Island and the property itself can be expanded and provided with decorations that are necessary for the game progress. After all, June's Journey contains elements of an adventure game : In certain situations puzzles have to be solved, either in the form of puzzles or by combining objects in a picture.
Wooga is following a free-to-play model with June's Journey . The game is free and provides the player with almost all game functions for free. The manufacturer earns from paid additional offers that give the player advantages over other players, as well as from advertising displayed in the game. In 2018, advertising contributed a third to the sales that Wooga generated with June's Journey . The game has different internal currencies that are required for different functions:
- Energy, represented by a bar with a maximum of 110 points, is required for the hidden objects - starting a hidden object costs 15 energy points, and the energy bar fills up by one point every two minutes, so that a player who is playing intensely has a break after a few pictures must insert in order to have enough energy for a picture again. Energy can be replenished in the game with diamonds or found in reward boxes.
- Coins are required to purchase extensions for the family estate. They are acquired by solving hidden objects or through certain expansions of the property or can be found in reward boxes distributed throughout the game. Coins can be bought in-game for real money.
- Diamonds are needed for boosting the player's energy as well as for some special expansions and functions. They can be acquired through interaction with other players or can be found in reward boxes. Diamonds can be bought in-game for real money.
- Blossoms are needed in order to rise in the level and thereby unlock further game content. Flowers are acquired through the purchase of extensions to the property and can therefore only be acquired indirectly (through the purchase of the game currencies required for the extensions) with real money.
Wooga chose a games-as-a-service business model for June's Journey . Content has been added to the game continuously since it was first published. This creates costs for the manufacturer, but these should be amortized through long-term motivation of the players - the more time a player spends with the game, the more additional offers he buys on average.
Production notes
The team that developed June's Journey comprised a total of around 60 people. The lead author Rebecca Harwick is the head of the writing team at Wooga and previously worked as a freelance writer for the games Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls Online , among others .
June's Journey was published on October 5, 2017 simultaneously on Facebook and for Android and iOS. The target group of the game are primarily women, who made up 70% of the players in 2018 and had an average age of 40 years. The game's soundtrack was also released separately.
For the Wooga developer studio, June's Journey was a financial breakthrough after several financially difficult years that required a significant reduction in the workforce. Due to the economic success of the game, Wooga - one of the ten largest game developers in Germany - changed its business model, away from storyless puzzle games and towards story-based casual games in episode format . While Wooga previously published primarily completed games, June's Journey was supplemented by content on a weekly basis by a dedicated, smaller team in order to achieve a long-term loyalty of the player to the game. To further increase player loyalty, Wooga drove some rather unusual marketing measures in the casual games segment. Among other things, five players from five countries were invited to the company's headquarters in Berlin at the end of 2019 to meet the production team and exchange ideas.
reception
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In June 2020, June's Journey had over 10,000,000 downloads on Google Play .
The German-language online magazine Android User praised the puzzles, the graphics and the ease of use and judged that June's Journey would captivate the player for a long time. ChillDroid emphasized the “fresh and fresh” setting in the 1920s, which is supported by the graphic style. The graphics are "vivid, well worked out, concise and error-free". Small mistakes in the gameplay design that led to incomprehensible waiting times in the game were criticized. IPlayApps.de saw "a great staged hidden object detective game", but the players should not be bothered by the usual restrictions that free-to-play titles would bring with them. PocketGamer pointed out that the character June Parker follows the classic patterns of hidden object games: She keeps her head clear in her investigations and approaches her investigations with logic, which the male characters in the game do not. This is how the manufacturer serves its female target group. The computer image listed June's Journey in their list of "top 15 games on the go."
The Hollywood Music in Media Awards was June's Journey in 2018 for his music in the category - nominated but came away empty "Original Score Mobile Video Game".
Free-to-play games such as June's Journey are generally criticized for encouraging children in particular to spend carelessly and multiple times money for gaming advantages through quick and easily achievable successes for relatively small amounts of money.
Web links
- Manufacturer's product page
- June's Journey on Facebook
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Gameswirtschaft.de: Wooga financial year 2017: Return to profit zone with lower sales. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Spiegel.de: User records and fear of the future. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Gamasutra.com: Wooga Launches Most Ambitious Hidden-Object Game Yet With June's Journey. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ VentureBeat.com: Wooga's June's Journey hidden-object game features ambitious weekly updates. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Golem.de: Game developer Wooga rebuilds workflow. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Wooga.com: 7 tips for creating genuine moments with your players. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Android-User.de : June's Journey - the detective hidden object game in the style of the 1920s with addictive character. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b ChillDroid.com: June's Journey - Hidden Objects Review. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ IPlayApps.de: June's Journey: new hidden object detective game from wooga. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ PocketGamer.com: From Ravenhearst to June's Journey: Why you should be playing more hidden object games. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ ComputerBild.de: 15 top games for on the go. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ MusicConnection.com: The Hollywood Music In Media Awards Announces 2019 Nominees. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Welt.de: Game manufacturers gamble off children with free apps. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .