Where's My Water? is a puzzle video game developed by Creature Feep and published by Disney Mobile, a subsidiary of Disney Interactive Studios. Released for desktop web browsers such as Internet Explorer and devices using Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Microsoft's Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 operating systems, the game requires players to route a supply of water to an alligator. Its lead character, Swampy, is the first original Disney character for a mobile game.
The game has inspired additional games by Disney Mobile, “Where’s My Perry?” and “Where’s My Mickey?” being released on June 20, 2013. A follow-up to the game, called "Where's My Water? 2" was released on September 2013.
Gameplay
Swampy, an alligator living in a city sewer system, hates being dirty. Whenever he tries to take a bath, Cranky, another alligator living in the sewers, disrupts the water flow to Swampy's home.
Located somewhere on the level is a supply of water, either a limited amount pooled at different locations or an unlimited amount flowing from a pipe. Players use the touch screen on their device to dig through the dirt and redirect the water toward an inlet leading to Swampy's bathtub. In many levels, the water must be routed through other pipes or must interact with machines in order to open up a route to the inlet. When the required amount of water (that being twenty minimum) reaches the bathtub, the level is completed and the next level is unlocked. Also scattered around the level are three rubber ducks that can be collected when they are filled with five drops of water. Select levels also include items hidden in the dirt that will unlock bonus levels when three-item collections are completed.
Certain levels are also populated by hazards that must be avoided or removed. For example, some levels contain algae that will absorb water and grow, while bombs destroy all objects and/or kill all the rubber ducks in the bomb's vicinity. Other types of fluids will sometimes appear, such as purple poison/acid, reddish mud, and green ooze/slime. If either poison, ooze or mud reaches the inlet, the level is failed and must be restarted (Swampy jumps out of the tub if poison/acid enters it, but simply gets surprised or disgusted if ooze/slime or mud enters it instead). If all the water or any fluids that must be converted disappear, Swampy simply mopes as the level restarts too (in the free version of this game or any version of the game until 2013, he mournfully cries as a result of failure). The poison, mud, and the ooze will kill all the rubber ducks (they turn into uncollectable skulls and make a painful-sounding quack) on contact, as well as bombs when the ducks are in the vicinity of them.
Points are awarded for a/the short amount of time taken to complete the level, for collecting rubber ducks and for delivering more than the minimum amount of water to Swampy's tub. Collecting a certain number of rubber ducks will also unlock new groups of levels.
Development
Where's My Water? was developed by Creature Feep, a team of designers within the Disney Mobile division of Disney Interactive Studios. Creature Feep is headed up by game design director Tim FitzRandolph. In an October 2011 interview, FitzRandolph explained that the goal for the development of Where's My Water? was "to contribute a new character to the company, while making a really fun game in the process".
The earliest phase of development centered around the concept of the game, which was players using their fingers to guide water to a goal. In actuality, the water is rendered as lots of individual "drops" that interact with each other. At one point the designers had to devise a reason for having a bathtub underground. That reason came from the urban legend of alligators living in city sewers, so the game's lead character became a "hygiene-conscious alligator". Unlike many mobile games released by Disney, where characters from the company's films are used, Where's My Water? represents the first time that Disney has produced an original character for a mobile game. In designing that character, Disney Mobile wanted one "that felt like it belonged when lined up with other Disney characters".