ROLE: GAME DESIGNER & LIVE OPS

Knights & Dragons is one of the top 3 highest grossing mobile game to be released in North America.

As a Live Ops Game Designer, I was responsible for designing Quests and the game’s live content, while managing data and increasing our monthly active users. A big part of my job was working closely with the analytics team, designing creative and balanced F2P experiences and game mockups in order to maximize monetisation and game retention.

CLIENT

GREE

DATE

April '14 - October '14

TOOLS

Visio, Photoshop, Excel, Bugzilla

GAME OVERVIEW

Knights and Dragons is an iOS and Android game developed by IUGO Mobile Entertainment and published by GREE. The game is a non-stop action RPG with endless battles against mythical creatures in a massive action-packed adventure! As the Knight Commander, the player have to manage their Kingdom, while unlocking hundred of items, collect powerful heroes, craft armor with rare elements, embark on legendary quests & join a multiplayer guild to protect their kingdom!

RESPONSIBILITIES

Quests 
Narrative Design

Responsible for monthly updates containing new Quests that would play side-by-side with new Events, Bosses and Armors released in the game.

Events 
Content Design

Responsible for designing new creative events every month, which would bring a new set of Bosses, Tournaments and Armors to be crafted by the players.

Chance Chests 
Chest Design

Responsible for the design of new chests (visuals and content), which reinforces the monezation, the meta-game and player’s retention.

KPI 
Game Economy Analysis

Responsible for quickly responding to game economy analysis by designing gameplay systems that maximize engagement while ensuring revenue and retention to hit target KPIs.

RETENTION GAME AND MONETIZATION

As with any Free to Play game, one of the most important parts of my work was to understand and analyse player behaviour, and use this data to inform the design of gameplay elements that both engaged and retained players.

On Knights and Dragons, the core to our retention strategy was through numerous monthly Events. This would involve designing several new types of Armors, Quests, Tournaments and Bosses to be added to the game as new content, as well as narratives tying these elements together. For example, in the “Halloween Month Event” (pictured left), by collecting hair piece materials from The Bride Boss, the player was able to craft the Boss’ Armor. This added extra depth to gameplay, and kept players interested.

To boost monetization, we used a gacha mechanic in the form of Chests where players could spend to have a chance of unlocking high value items. These needed to be carefully balanced to ensure players never felt cheated.

SUPERFAN GAME

In order to create a more satisfying end-game for Knights and Dragons, I collaborated with a team of designers on the new game mode: GUILD WARS. This added social interactions and group-based competitions, and was well received by players.

Guild Wars are clan-based tournaments allowing guilds to fight against each other for fame, glory and of course very special items!

The Guild Wars was designed specifically to tap into our growing base of dedicated players who had moved beyond the game’s core loop. Guild Wars offered all of the components of a strong Superfan Layer: Social Guild Formation, Clear Leaderboards, and a very strong sense of competition. It goes without saying that this new mode was a great success both for players and for us, boosting retention and revenue for the game!