In-Development Game | Zynga
For four months (January to May 2021), I was a part of a Zynga division, called New Games Group, in which I was one of three UX designers to build out the game for its soft launch in May 2021 to test its Day-7 (D7) retention.
When I first joined the team, they had just decided to switch the screen orientation from portrait to landscape. We had essentially 3 months to redesign the layout, establish the UI style as well as implement all the screens onto Unity. I collaborated extremely closely with product managers and game designers in order to help spec out features as well as engineers in order to hook up the front-end UI with back-end code. The last month before the launch was reserved for bug fixes and essential UI changes. We also held multiple playtests with our core audience, getting direct feedback in order to better improve and polish the game before the soft launch.
The D7 retention rate calculated how many players were logging in within seven days for a month. We released the game to two countries, Canada and Singapore, in order to analyze the performance within our core audience. The goal was to test player engagement, and if the game succeeded, we would put more focus into developing it further.
After the D7 launch, I started working on other major features that were scheduled for the company-wide playtest in August. In addition, I spearheaded the initiative of our new UI style guide for easy access and reference.
The test proved to be a success! After the first week of release, our numbers were hitting or surpassing our targets especially for D1:
D1 Retention
Target: 40%
FTUE Completion
Target: 55%
I am so excited to share the game once it is available to play. Warning: highly addicting!
