Final War: 5 Dragons — Anthony Palaje

Final War: 5 Dragons

OVERVIEW

Final War 5 Dragons is a fantasy battle card game, where combat occurs through a unique take on a match-three puzzle mechanic. While it appears to be a simple game on the surface, there were many challenges in bringing Final War 5 Dragons to fruition.

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THE SITUATION

The company initially setout to create a digital fantasy TCG called “Final War” which they abandoned due to issues with the game design and scope creep. With the emergence of financially successful mobile puzzle games such as Puzzles & Dragons in Asia and Candy Crush in the west, a decision was made by company stakeholders to develop a puzzle game in an attempt to take advantage of the consumer appetite in the mobile gaming marketplace.

THE BRIEF

After much debate, the company stakeholders decided we would create an original mid-core mobile puzzle game for iOS, Android and Facebook platforms. There was also a decision to utilize popular match-3 game mechanics and encourage repeat play through various in-game and metagame progression mechanics. The idea behind the decision was purely commercial, mimicking successful competitor monetization strategies through microtransactions.

THE CHALLENGES

INTERNAL CHALLENGES

For years the Final War projects had been at a virtual standstill with various issues in design and failures within the company. To turn the situation around, we needed to address the following key issues;

  • Define product vision, scope, and business objectives

  • Define the most valuable features for the player to determine which would make up the product MVP

  • Generate enthusiasm within the studio about the new project

  • Create a better development & production process

  • Remove development impediments

  • Find a way to get early feedback on prototypes without having to build a polished version

  • Reduce crippling scope creep

  • Produce a minimal viable product

 

PRODUCT CHALLENGES

  • Meet expectations of stakeholders, some of which have a personal attachment to the IP

  • Breakthrough marketplace noise

  • Offer players something other than a clone of an existing game

  • Engage high fantasy fans and convert them to paying players

  • Design mechanics to encourage repeat play

  • Implement a form of social/ multiplayer gaming

  • The volume of custom artwork

MY ROLE

Lead/ Producer: Do whatever it takes to get a quality product over the line and into the marketplace.

INSIGHTS & IDEATION

Uncover insights and translate concepts into features that appeal to the target audience addressing player engagement, behaviour and price points.

EXPERIENCE STRATEGY & VISION

Create user journeys, wireframes, IA, animations, videos, and prototypes to share the games vision, design principles and content strategy across each platform. Developing these artifacts helped sell ideas, gain alignment across the company and drive decision making.

PLANNING & SCOPE DEFINITION

Define the product, balancing customer needs and business objectives — prioritized and negotiated features for MVP and beyond.

OVERSIGHT & COORDINATION

I designed and collaborated with artists, post-production and software developers to translate game features into each build of the game.

DESIGN EXECUTION & VALIDATION

The game targeted Facebook, iOS and Android devices with a scalable AWS backend across various regions to improve player performance. Each platform had its user journey validated via multiple UX research methods and was UAT tested.

LEADERSHIP

I presented works to gain buy‐in from stakeholders and the production team, increased production transparency, identified talent & skills to accelerate production and kept the team motivated throughout the projects life cycle.

STRATEGY

  • Define the business objectives and positioning with stakeholders

  • Define the features and the value of those features to determine which would make up the product MVP

  • Create a feasible roadmap which would see the product MVP complete and shipped on time

  • Work with management team to are schedule and milestones.

  • KPI's

  • Define the product UX through the use of various use cases, user journeys, personas, IA and wireframes which can be used by the entire team maximizing effectiveness in development

  • Increase the flow and transparency of information across the team

  • Drive and facilitate the interaction between various departments working on the project

  • Identify talent & skills across the organization to use to accelerate production

  • Meet milestones and get to the marketplace in a timely fashion

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PRODUCT VISION

After getting the team excited over the new product and completing the initial game design, UX research, product backlog and visual design direction stakeholders hijacked the product and transformed into a Final War product which would reuse existing story/ lore and art assets to save money and help justify earlier expenditure on the abandoned project. This stakeholder decision to shoehorn Final War elements into the game had many negative repercussions on the team and the product.

In the end, the product vision provided by stakeholders was a poorly defined multi-puzzle high fantasy card game with no clear player demographic apart from high fantasy fans.

The team responded well to this challenge putting ideas & energy forward to improve the game and make it a success.

PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS

SUPPORTED PLATFORMS

  • iOS and Android (Phone & tablets)

    • iPhone 5.

    • iPhone 6.

    • iPad 2 and above.

    • Galaxy s4 and above.

  • Facebook web version of the game.

GAME KEY FEATURES

- Guest player
- Facebook connect
- Title screen
- Loading screen
- Login bonus
- Random rewards
- Push notifications
- In-game notifications

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- Events panels
- Gold to diamonds
- Tips
- Referral bonus
- Continue game
- Rewards
- Crafting
- Card library

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- Achievements
- Leaderboards
- Crafting
- Card Library
- Achievements
- Leaderboards
- Marketplace
- Gold to diamonds

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- Campaigns
- Quests
- Raids
- Guild Wars
- Select Dragon screen
- 12 campaign Maps
- Current campaign screen
- Loot Stash
- Edit Army
- Dragon scales

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- Current campaign screen
- Loot Stash
- Edit army
- Select Heroes
- Select Artifacts
- Select Powers
- Puzzle design
- Heroes ring
- Surrender
- Daily Quests

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- Raids dashboard
- Heroes
- Artifacts
- Powers
- Forts
- Dragon
- Card Rarity
-Various popup/ ceremony screen animations
-Card preview
-Continue Battle
-Retry Battle
-Booster Offer
-Booster offer skip prompt
-Player Leveling system
-Rewards distribution systems
-Currency: Gold & Diamonds
-Stamina system
-Set Bonuses

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