Whether it was for NPC Questlines, Live Ops, Events, or new gameplay verticals, our design team was constantly asking, “does this design feel delightful?”

“Dynamic Delight” was our mantra throughout every feature process, always evaluating if our gameplay or narrative content inspired delight for our players.

My first design opportunity was co-leading development on our 72hr weekly event, “Morgaine’s Brewstorming” and our quarterly “Hidden Creature” event.

These features—defined by quick turnarounds and rapid iteration—defined my design mindset: concisely carve to the heart of gameplay as quickly as you can, then build out from there.

“Let the content flow.” - Baron Harkonnen, Ruler of Live Ops

Jellyvale’s first major feature addition was the “Rose Garden,” complete with a new NPC, Dialogue System, and Gameplay Vertical.

This was my first opportunity to iterate on our core dialogue UI and UX, adding in an additional “fairy tale mode” where players saw custom art assets while an in-game fairy tale was read to them.

In line with this narrative changes, we ideated on how best to improve our core M3 gameplay through ludonarrative connection; we developed the “Rose Tunnels,” a clean gameplay metaphor for this new core loop that aligned exactly with the Rose Garden narrative.

A key learning from Jellyvale was how to constantly lean on player feedback and playtest data to guide design decisions.

Design is as much an art as a science, but playtest data and metrics are a great source of concrete knowledge that can help define content and design goals for a project.

Whether it be subjective (playtest) or objective (retention, payer%) data, I find myself leaning heavily on both to influence my design philosophy for a given project.