Shoot Mania

Role: Lead UX Designer
Skills: Research, Wireframes, Prototyping, Visual Design
Platform: Mobile

Overview:


Elex is a technology and mobile development company with massive success in the real-time strategy genre. Headquartered in Beijing with studios worldwide, I was part of the San Francisco Studio as the Lead Designer on the new development team.

As a new studio objective, Shoot Mania is a new venture into an action-rpg platform aimed at targeting the Western market and style of gameplay.

Research

Worked with the survey team to deploy various questionnaires to gain insight on themes, demographics, and general player preferences. An example of one of the initiatives was to determine the orientation that would best drive the ideal type of gameplay and interaction we were considering. The team sampled our current target audience, the SLG and 4x players alongside a normal control group with no particular preference towards genres.

Figure 1. Orientation Preferences

Players generally prefer vertical orientation due to simplified controls and easier to grasp gameplay mechanics.

Figure 2. Download Trends

Orientation mostly does not play a major role in determining on what to download.

Figure 3. Age Demographic

When factoring age, the results were that the older bracket preferred vertical orientation; whereas, the younger audience preferred a horizontal layout.

Planning

For the initial build, focus was more heavily set on the single player experience with a secondary focus on multiplayer capabilities. At its core, the team wanted to have an engaging and challenging experience. Rogue-like action platformers are not new to the gaming world, so we needed to set ourselves apart. We believed the answer was “sticky” gameplay mechanics layered on top of a collaborative team atmosphere would bring the change and appeal needed.

The team decided on a vertical orientation to lean heavily into simplificity. Vertical orientation will allow us to reduce the complexity of gameplay and allows more casual sessions lasting 5 - 10 minutes of engaging gameplay.

Core Game

At a basic level, the main player objectives are to progress through the game relying heavily on two factors - skill and equipment. More weight is applied to human skill with an eventual threshold where equipment will be a blocker towards forward progression.

The general loop is battling in arenas, acquiring skills and equipment, and completing levels. Failure causes a player to lose their loot or winnings; therefore, skills is an important element early on.

Goals

  • [D1 - D2] Single player mode. Introduction to the core features including battle, ability selection, talent upgrade and equipment. Players will continue to progress to unlock chapter clear rewards and new heroes.

  • [D3] Multiplayer mode. Team up with other players in synchronous 3v3 map. The difficulty increasingly scales along with better loot drops. Early social mechanics such as chat and friends list will further support the sense of community.

  • [D4] Progression. Equipment will eventually play a heavy role as a driving force towards progression. Crafting and customization are advanced features that allow players to greatly increase combat potential and contribute to other engagement features such as collection and competition.

  • [D5 - D7] Social. Focusing more on engagement and retention are social features including guilds and server wide events.

Battle

The initial experience for single player, multiplayer and end level boss battles.

Skill Selection

Shoot Mania is highly dependent on a player’s knowledge and ability to maneuver, it’s important for players to have the information necessary to make make the appropriate decisions to improve the battle advantage. The randomness and combination of skills keep the game fresh and fun in an otherwise repetitive structure.

Battle Results

The items obtained at the end of each chapter will shape the potential for players during advance crafting and modification.

Inventory

The secondary focus revolves around equipment and collection. These more late-game features further drive the idea of progression and engagement. As players defeat bosses and clear levels, they’re rewarded for their efforts.