Fish World
Fish World is a Facebook game with a 10 year history. The game focuses on allowing players to express themselves by creating custom fish tanks using in game assets which we sell to them on a regular basis. As a designer, my role was to create new features which would increase player engagement and give players new ways to play the game beyond just buying decorations and putting them in tanks.
Goldie’s Adventure - Match 3
A labour of love - Goldie’s Adventure was a foray into the Match 3 genre for Fish World. In order to create this feature I studied many of the top grossing Match 3 games from Candy Crush to Homescapes. I designed a fully featured Match 3 game within Fish World that allowed players to earn premium items by completing levels. Beyond the core match 3 experience, I also designed a monthly event which encouraged players to return each day to unlock new levels and face new challenges.
Key Learnings:
Match 3 design
Level Design
Economic modelling and design
Designing retention mechanics
Event Design
Throughout my time working on Fish World I worked on several different event designs. Some were intended to improve retention, others were designed to increase player engagement or spend. These were challenging exercises because the fan base for Fish World has been around for a long time, so there is a lot of path-dependency. Any event I designed had to be simple enough for a casual audience to understand but still provide a way to engage our users. Some example events:
Arcane Slots - a slot based event where players collected crafting materials while playing slots
Team Slots - a social slot event where players join to teams to compete against each other
Mailbox Event - a retention focused event which also encouraged players to share their creations
Data Analysis
Part of any design is measuring its effectiveness. Even though I had designs which I thought were good, its important to be able to measure their impact and evaluate them objectively. Beyond that, it’s also important to be able to answer questions about the game in general. What is the status of the economy? Why is this particular pattern occurring? What sort of behaviours are the users participating in?
Through the use of SQL and excel I am able to track the performance of our features and investigate any measurable part of the game.