Jewel Mania
Overview
Jewel Mania was Storm8’s first Match-3 puzzle game. This classic spent years in the top 50 and top 100 highest-grossing games of the App Store. At the time, Jewel Mania was one of ‘the big three:’ Candy Crush, Jewel, and Bejeweled.
This standard Match-3 provided players with a linear level-based experience, with simple objectives and a host of traditional obstacles. Featuring an 8 x 8 gameboard, this puzzle game was proof that Storm8 could create and operate a successful puzzle business
Contributions
I joined Jewel Mania as an Associate Designer immediately after its launch. As a level designer, I designed over 200 Jewel Mania levels and tuned hundreds more. A design team of 2 from the start, Jewel Mania was my first Match-3. At this early lifetime in mobile games, our team of 2 was mostly self-managing and sufficient. We created levels within a desktop tool, tuned using live data, worked in SQL and directly within databases. We also hand-made all obstacle/mechanic tutorials and messaging and directly managed Push Notifications and community updates. We spoke directly to our players within community forums and engaged with our players, providing tips, tricks, strategies, and previews of upcoming conent.
Years later, as a Senior Designer, I took over as team manager for its resurrection of creating new content. This involved mentorship, management of art and design teams, and creating content plans for its future roadmap.
Candy Blast Mania
Overview
Candy Blast was Storm8’s most successful entry in the Mania franchise. Best described as a match-up of CCS and Farm Heroes Saga, Candy blast is a traditional, linear Match-3 puzzle game with over 1200 levels.
Contributions
As an Associate Game Designer, I created a slew of levels for Candy Blast early on in its lifecycle. This involved level creation, design, and live tuning. As designers, we provided peer reviews of other owners’ levels and created all in-game tutorials and messaging. Years later, I became the Senior Designer for Storm8’s puzzle team and oversaw the design team that continued to create its content. This included overseeing the development of levels, participating in and providing level reviews, and providing sign-off on all designed content. Weekly team syncs would review industry practices and educational opportunities for junior designers.
Hungry Babies Mania
Otherview
Hungry Babies is a recipe-based Match-3. Each level tasks players at feeding a line of baby animals by matching their requested Treats. Fulfill recipes and feed the babies on the screen to move onto the next baby’s recipe. Traditional Match-3 obstacles keep things fresh and provide new twists on the tried-and-true formula.
Contributions
As the Senior Designer for Hungry Babies, I led system design and managed the level design team. This involved overseeing 2 associates and a mid-level designer, reviewing levels, managing multiple departments’ coordination, and overseeing all content creation. When I joined Hungry Babies, my first task was to apply learnings from other match-3 experiments in order to lift ARPDAU via changes to the winrate curve. This was a multi-month process of retuning around 600 levels. As learned from the curves in Diamond Quest, we were able to increase overall ARPDAU throughout, increasing player LTV, but moving from a strict, flat curve to a velvet rope, peaks and valleys curve.
Bubble Mania
Contributions
I joined Bubble Mania as Senior Designer, overseeing two reports that served as level designers. I coordinated and reviewed levels, trained new contractors to be level designers, and oversaw the app’s art and design production. I provided daily feedback and gave recommendations of level curves / winrates and overall level design. Bubble Mania also provided the grounding for Polar Pop Mania, a best-of Bubble Shooter tied to Bubble Mania’s top-performing levels.
Overview
Bubble Mania was Storm8’s first puzzle game and its first Bubble Shooter. The first in the Mania series, Bubble Mania would set the stage and be one of the top puzzle games on the app store for years. This linear, level-based game tasks players at beating levels and popping bubbles to save the mascot’s adorable baby critters. With classic obstacles and hundreds of levels, Bubble Mania started off Storm8’s puzzle business in a fantastic direction.