Gamercraft - Challenges
How to help players improve?
The challenge identified: Gamercraft players expressed the need for more motivation between tournaments and lacked a clear progression system to improve their skills in a fun way.
My solution: I designed a progressive challenge system inspired by skill trees, with gradual rewards and a motivating unlock system to maintain engagement.
Valuable learnings: Although this project was paused for strategic reasons, it allowed me to perfect my iterative design methodology and tackle user research challenges in a multilingual context (majority Brazilian users). This experience helped me progress in gaming design and strategic pivot management - key skills that I was able to reinvest in all my following projects.
Collaborative workshop: laying the foundations
In order to properly align stakeholders and understand expectations, I facilitated a "6 to 1" workshop where each participant proposed their ideas for structure and user journey. This collaborative process allowed us to identify the main mechanic of the project: progressive challenges to foster player engagement.
Initial design iterations
Building on the workshop results, I developed several functional prototypes. These prototypes included:
Smooth and intuitive navigation to allow users to track their progress.
A progression tree with objectives unlocking the next ones, thus stimulating participation.
An attractive reward system, which motivates users to go further and further.
User testing: refining the solution
User research was a challenge, particularly due to the linguistic diversity of users. I recruited English-speaking testers to be able to collect feedback. The sessions revealed necessary adjustments, such as better clarity of challenge rules and a refinement of user expectations regarding rewards.
Notable quote: "I use the platform to earn money and pay for my studies, so this kind of novelty is really cool."
Result and project completion
Although the project was paused due to strategic changes, the experience allowed me to perfect my iterative design methodology and tackle challenges related to user research in a multilingual context. This project enriched my practice in game design and priority management within a product team.
