Sing Party was a unique project for the often-overlooked Wii U, developed by Activision in close collaboration with Nintendo. At its heart, it was a singing and party game aimed at younger, family-oriented players, designed to make inventive use of the Wii U’s unusual GamePad controller.
I created the game’s bold, exaggerated pop aesthetic, drawing inspiration from Top of the Pops, MTV idents and pop art. I also played a central role in developing the UI, using the GamePad to display lyrics, build playlists on the fly and interact dynamically with the action on the TV.
We effectively had to build the UI twice, as the complete interface needed to work across both the television and the GamePad screen. Taking inspiration from mobile devices at the time, the GamePad interface could also be viewed in either landscape or portrait orientation. This created a considerable amount of additional work, but the result was effective and felt genuinely new for a console game.
The party modes, which combined singing and dancing, were originally envisioned as something closer to Just Dance, using cameras to assess performance and provide meaningful feedback. My impression was that Nintendo became cautious about this direction because it risked placing the game in direct competition with Just Dance on Wii U.
Without the camera-based assessment, the dancing offered no system feedback, leaving players to vote on one another’s performances. It became more of a curiosity than a fun or rewarding game mode and, frankly, I never felt it worked.
One feature I was particularly proud of was the karaoke mode UI, which introduced glowing performance feedback and a visual pitch guide for the lyrics. This type of feedback has since become increasingly common across music games.
Although Sing Party wasn’t a major commercial hit, it was a polished, energetic sing-along experience that still holds up today, especially after a few drinks. Reviews frequently praised the interface and presentation, the two areas for which I was primarily responsible.
I created the game’s bold, exaggerated pop aesthetic, drawing inspiration from Top of the Pops, MTV idents and pop art. I also played a central role in developing the UI, using the GamePad to display lyrics, build playlists on the fly and interact dynamically with the action on the TV.
We effectively had to build the UI twice, as the complete interface needed to work across both the television and the GamePad screen. Taking inspiration from mobile devices at the time, the GamePad interface could also be viewed in either landscape or portrait orientation. This created a considerable amount of additional work, but the result was effective and felt genuinely new for a console game.
The party modes, which combined singing and dancing, were originally envisioned as something closer to Just Dance, using cameras to assess performance and provide meaningful feedback. My impression was that Nintendo became cautious about this direction because it risked placing the game in direct competition with Just Dance on Wii U.
Without the camera-based assessment, the dancing offered no system feedback, leaving players to vote on one another’s performances. It became more of a curiosity than a fun or rewarding game mode and, frankly, I never felt it worked.
One feature I was particularly proud of was the karaoke mode UI, which introduced glowing performance feedback and a visual pitch guide for the lyrics. This type of feedback has since become increasingly common across music games.
Although Sing Party wasn’t a major commercial hit, it was a polished, energetic sing-along experience that still holds up today, especially after a few drinks. Reviews frequently praised the interface and presentation, the two areas for which I was primarily responsible.
