Unannounced Animal Idle/Sim

I spent a month and a half researching the competition and determining our market position. Two-thirds of that was reviewing over a dozen competitor products. This wasn’t just a quick review either. I performed a deep dive, evaluating each game’s onboarding, retention, monetization, game loops, and visual presentation. I gave each game 2 weeks of time so I could gain a strong understanding of their live events and long-term metagame elements. Any analytics I could find on earnings, audience percentages, etc. were also noted to gauge where we could design our product for the best possible positioning.
 
Next, I researched our target audience and other related products for what features and qualities were deemed most desirable. I wanted to make sure that our game focused on what our players were really going to be looking for, and ensure our direction and features were on target.
 
Once research was complete, I compiled my findings into a report and presented it to the stakeholders. At the end, we reviewed my proposal for market positioning and a high-level outline of the game direction. This was approved with minimal friction and allowed me to continue with the game direction development.

The market research phase gave me a rough first pass of the product pillars and general direction, but it needed refinement. I iterated on the core loop of the game as I worked through the product pillars, and eventually came down to a clear, concise vision statement and three strong product pillars. Each pillar statement was given 2-4 details for clarity.
 
I’m a huge champion of product pillars, as they set a baseline for everyone on the project. Any change request, idea, or proposal can be held up against the pillars for validation. If something resonates, it’s a likely fit for the project. If not, it gives you an easy, clear answer early on. I’ve used pillars many times across my career to help keep vision in check. This project was no exception.
 
Before getting sign-off, I shopped my work around with my colleagues to validate clarity and see if I was missing anything. Everyone was unanimously excited about the direction and were able to understand it with ease. Once the vision statement and pillars were agreed to by stakeholders, they became the project gospel and were not altered thereafter.

While waiting for engineering and art resources to ramp on to the project, I continued with refining and detailing out the core loops, resources, monetization strategies, design rules, etc. Every aspect of the project I tried to get down on paper in a clear, concise manner. Luckily a lot of my market research revealed a strong outline of where we needed to go with the game, so there wasn’t a lot of prototyping necessary to prove out the fun. The fun was known.
 
My goal with the documentation was to make sure that UI/UX and the engineers had everything they needed to make the game. I outlined as many parameters as I could, areas of reuse for UI elements and features, and created a full set of wireframes for the project. 
I didn’t just write and design in a vacuum either. Throughout the efforts, I held weekly syncs with stakeholders to review feature design and progress. I also solicited feedback from the rest of the team busy with the other studio project, Disaster Town Tycoon. Feedback was generally easy to incorporate, as I used it to update data points, or to find solutions to streamline features.
 
The end-product was what I set out for it to be. An engineering focused document that laid out the blueprint for the whole game from pre-production right up to post-launch.