DISASTER TOWN TYCOON

While working on the economy updates for the project, I ended up making adjustments to almost every area of the game. Outside of the game loop and economy theory crafting I mentioned above, I worked through much more hands-on, number adjustment work. Number work isn’t my favorite thing to do, but when a job needs to get done, I’m not one to shy away.

• Evaluated game and economy theory, designed proposals, and presented options for adjustments.
• Created a Building Cost/Upgrade matrix to allow us to properly track improvement costs and output values for over 50 different main game building objects in data. It was created dynamically so that updates to one sheet would cascade to the others for updating, allowing real-time evaluation of changes.
• Planned out economy updates for over 50 main game levels, each containing an average of 10 goals to track progress for.
  • First focused on Level 1-10 to improve D0-D1 retention, in conjunction with tutorial improvements.
  • Further updated Level 11-50 to improve D3-D30 retention and smooth out the economy based on the learnings and updates from the Level 1-10 improvements.
• Implemented the above planned economy updates, and hand tested to verify flow improvements.
  • My Building matrix helped streamline the planning and made implementation smoother.
• Rebalanced Spin Wheel prizes, PIR helicopter prizes, and loot box schemas based on player progress.
• Rebalanced permit and plot unlock schedules to allow players to build early if they had the resources.
  • Promotes spending but does not punish FTP players.
• Designed and implemented IAP building map placements and hard currency sink building packs.
  • Tuned premium building output to be powerful and valuable, but not totally break the game economy.
• Further tuned Levels 1-15 based on new analytics data, player feedback, and internal testing.
• Implemented economy and attack phase data for 3 additional live events.
• Overhauled our first live event, improving early user experience, smoothing out game feel, and making the attacking kaiju more exciting! 
  • This update also included an overhaul of building locations on the map, and an unlock schedule to ensure that it not only felt good to play but looked better too!

As a senior game designer, I also took on the responsibility to offer a helping hand to the other designers and help unload some of their burdens. I provided feedback for their design work, validated their design choices through my economy design, and helped implement where necessary.

• Proposed gameplay improvements to the project to increase the fun factor.
• Brainstormed with, presented feedback for, and assisted fellow designers with their design work.
• Implemented characters, buildings, tutorial, IAP, and event content.
• Bug fixed goal flow, tutorials, and events.