Development Background
Game Summary: Greco-Roman-themed, 4X flagship title.
​
User Story: Command an empire and war against other empires for global dominance.
​
Product Challenges: When I joined MZ, Game of War had just reached #3 top grossing on the app store. To keep up with the game’s sudden success and increased market spend, our team rigorously increased the cadence of content releases from weekly to twice-a-day across all possible verticals and events. I started as a content designer on a team of 4 designers. The team eventually grew to about 8-10 designers and I transitioned to work on new features and major content releases. GoW eventually reached #1 on both app stores multiple times within the following year.
Feature - Explorer dungeon
Summary:
-
The player moves through a 4x4-room labyrinth in search for exits to the next floor, encountering monsters and treasure along the way to the bottom floor where the final boss awaits.
-
Each monster slain would drop a random, stacking boost that lasted for the duration of the dungeon run.
-
If the player is slain during combat, they lose all progress they made in the dungeon.
-
Floor exits doubled as dungeon exits, allowing the player to safely escape the dungeon with any loot they found.
My first, major feature design for MZ, it was the largest feature released for GoW at the time. Target was an easy, portrait-friendly minigame inspired by Dungeon Flicker, but with the potential spend depth that our other major game features had.
​
Was largely used as a retention feature to extend sessions while waiting for timers but also a potential monetization sink as exclusive rewards for completing dungeons impacted troop combat.
Feature - dragon's den
Summary
-
A building in the player’s city that allows the player to hatch and raise a dragon - a unique mega-troop with an entire skill tree like a hero that will defend the empire and can be sent on attacks.
-
Initially released as a D7 retention hook, the Dragon’s Den appeared in the city on initial launch but was locked behind a 1 week-long timer.
I was tasked with introducing a major feature with the spend depth and impact of a new Hero release but with actual combat stats, making it not dependent on troops to be effective. This also paved the way for future games (Supreme City: Rivals) to introduce Hero-type units.
​
Was eventually ported to Mobile Strike and FFXV:ANE.
Full body of work
Global
-
Feature Specs
-
Explorer Dungeon
-
Dragon’s Den
-
-
Content
-
Buildings
-
Research Trees
-
Troops
-
Heroes/Skill Trees
-
Gear
-
Gems
-
Consumables
-
Titles
-
PvEs
-
PvE Cities
-
Events
-
Speed Dungeons
-
Explorer Dungeons
-
Wheel of Fortune Loot Tables
-
Resource Tile Loot Tables
-
Sales
-
-
Managed Game How-to-Play/Blog
