Dance Star
With a new co-publishing agreement alongside Snap Inc., I led the Art Direction to create an engaging Bitmoji-focused rhythm game concept aimed at retaining their 319 million daily active users. This section showcases unpublished pitch concepts designed to help illustrate the game's potential.
Art Style Mock-Ups
Rhythm Gameplay
Pets & Studio
Dance Studio
The Objective
Snap Inc. aimed to capitalize on their existing audience by introducing an entirely fresh experience. Their existing revenue streams were rooted in their user engagement with curated culturally relevant content, largely consisting of user-generated content. My team's objective was to captivate, involve, and retain Snap Inc.'s daily active users in an off-platform gaming venture that relied less on user-generated content.
Miscellaneous Screen Mock-Ups
Early Research
Snap Inc. furnished us with an extensive analysis of their daily active users, covering details ranging from user demographics to their preferences and the reasons behind their engagement with the Snapchat platform. I helped review hundreds of pages of data, carefully documenting specific behaviors, motivations, and interests.
A few notable insights include:
52%
of users are ages 13-24
51%
of users are female
70%
or more play with or view AR filters daily
86%
use Snapchat to communicate with friends and family
Dance Star needed to seamlessly integrate with Snap Inc.'s social network, which required a thorough exploration of Snapchatters' most beloved and engaging features. I helped lead the effort in mapping Snapchat's features and conducted internal presentations to assess their functionalities and cultural significance. The aim was to pinpoint organic integration opportunities for potential future game features.
Player Motivations
Using data from Snapchat's DAU, including our own survey and third-party research, we defined a target user profile: Gen Z and Millennial females who value creativity, social responsibility, community, individuality, and friendships. We then identified games with similar audiences using Game Refinery and extracted key features to attract and retain gamers with specific motivations. I collaborated with a diverse team to develop features tailored to these motivations within our partnership context.
Competitor Research
We studied popular games that appealed to our target audience, observing their engagement mechanisms. These insights provided a foundation for identifying potential experiences within our feature set.
Homescapes
Social features and community-building are increasingly prevalent in traditionally single-player genres.
BeatStar
BeatStar is in the Top 200 grossing games on iOS in the US since its release in Aug 2021.
Project Makeover
Construction/Renovation/ Decoration elements appear in 49% of the US top-100 grossing iOS Match3 games, vs 7% just 6 years ago.
Royal Match
UA ads that feature mini-game experiences are currently a rising trend, and they are starting to shape the design of games.
Core Loop
I held a key role in owning and designing the core loop for Dance Star. After the core loop was established, I collaborated with multiple team members across various disciplines to develop supplementary loops for meta layers aligned with the player motivations we had previously identified.
Project Makeover
Construction/Renovation/ Decoration elements appear in 49% of the US top-100 grossing iOS Match3 games, vs 7% just 6 years ago.
Celebrating Snap's IP
While BeatStar's expertise laid the groundwork for rhythm gameplay on mobile in portrait orientation, we encountered notable challenges in integrating gameplay thematically with dance and Snap Inc.'s Bitmoji intellectual property.
Where could we position the user's Bitmoji to maintain its significance without diverting the player's attention from gameplay objectives?
Complete focus on Rhythm Track completely obscures the IP, even when transparent
IP truncates the players’ foresight of tiles on Track. Players rarely viewed the top UI since Catch Zone is at bottom
IP at bottom either impedes Catch Zone, shows too little of the IP or a combo of both.
Sporadic feedback from player inputs allows for too little focus on IP
The Solution
To help bring more focus onto the Bitmoji assets, we introduced a second gameplay experience that allowed players to directly engage with the Bitmoji IP without any additional user interface interference.
Because the Bitmoji assets were the sole focus of this second gameplay experience, it allowed us to seamlessly incorporate Bitmoji assets as a supporting element during the rhythm gameplay.
New Player Onboarding
Onboarding players presented several significant challenges. I helped spearhead the development of the FTUE (First-Time User Experience), guiding players through the initial moments of launching the application. This encompassed tasks such as logging in, creating an account, utilizing a guest account, and navigating through their first few rhythm stages.
Our documentation had to be comprehensive enough to support a global engineering team, with a strong emphasis on fidelity and accuracy. I meticulously crafted annotated grey box layouts to clearly convey a series of guided actions for the player, each accompanied by high-level user stories and linked to more specific player motivations. Within hundreds of screens, I presented step-by-step instructions that covered various elements, including the integration of sound, animations, transitions, text, and game prompts.
A question that came up: How could we effectively introduce Snapchat users unfamiliar with rhythm game mechanics?
Due to partner guidelines, players would eventually need to log in or create a Snapchat account to unlock the full game experience. However, implementing this requirement upon app launch could create a barrier for potential players less familiar with Snapchat or those with privacy concerns. After obtaining approval from Snapchat stakeholders, we proposed an alternative approach: First-time players would be greeted by a game host who would guide their initial experiences and provide a temporary Bitmoji character for gameplay.
This concept paved the way to seamlessly immerse players from the start, placing them directly into core gameplay and instructing them on the fundamentals of rhythm mechanics. In my initial iterations, I presented step-by-step instructions to guide the player without the complexity of characters for simplicity.
Creative Expression Features
Dance Studio
Dance Studio was conceived as a platform for players to personalize and showcase their unique style, accomplishments, and rewards. By incorporating their Snapchat friends list, players have the opportunity to visit and be visited by friends represented by their Bitmoji avatars.
As both the lead on the art direction and the user experience on the game, I played a role in constructing the experiential framework that enabled players to utilize a HomeScapes-inspired interface. This interface allows players to choose from unlockable customizations to revamp their Dance Studio.
Initial flow mock-up
Dance Studio pitch concepts
Bitmoji Pets
Regrettably, Snapchat's IP guidelines imposed several noteworthy limitations that hindered us from enabling players to customize their Bitmojis beyond the Bitmoji and Snapchat platforms. This restriction meant that the only integration option available was redirecting players to first-party applications to customize their Bitmojis. Additionally, it precluded our game from directly rewarding players with customizations for their Bitmojis. Out of these constraints, the concept of Pets emerged.
*Existing Bitmoji 'pet' asset
Conceived as a complementary avatar to accompany each player's Bitmoji, Pets introduced an additional means of expression. Players could collect and personalize a variety of sidekick-like characters to accompany their Bitmojis. The game had the capability to directly reward players for their achievements and progression, and it also presented opportunities for potential brand integrations with prospective partners.
Outcomes
Due to Snap Inc.'s shift in internal project priorities and team focus, they decided to suspend the development of all games, including Dance Star.
Key Takeaways
Teaming up with Snap Inc., a globally renowned partner, presented a set of formidable challenges and objectives. These challenges included working with legacy technologies, navigating heightened internal security measures, and aligning with Snap Inc.'s distinctive business strategies. To address these concerns and foster a more seamless collaboration, we established regular weekly meetings to encourage transparent and ongoing communication. These sessions often unearthed valuable insights.
Throughout this collaborative journey, I honed both my art direction and user experience skills. My contributions included defining the target audience, understanding key player motivations, and providing a fresh perspective on elements that would culturally resonate with players. Moreover, I played a significant role in the initial game design phase, where I created wireframes, userflows, and visual asset mockups to establish an art style appealing to both Snap, Inc. and the intended audience. These design concepts and visual aids also aided the team in identifying potential designs that could pose financial or logistical challenges, given our budget constraints and tight timelines.
