Modernizing Flagship Puzzle Games
Jam City | 2021
Studio UX Director
As studio UX Director at Jam City Toronto, a major effort in modernizing the UX vertical of legacy Jam City games in an effort to boost their ability to compete with other offerings in this space.
The challenge of Match puzzle game UX is multifaceted. The solution requires intimate knowledge of the game’s mechanics as well as an understanding of player motivation, psychology and lifestyle considerations. UX has to help the game fit into people’s lives as much as provide entertainment.
This is a tactic that was applied to all Jam City products, both legacy and new, in order to deliver the performance, retention and monetization impact that was desired.
UX North Stars
Making significant, product wide changes to a live game will always be challenging.
My initiative was to define a clear set of rules that unify our approach and govern each team’s priorities. Once established and approved, these rules became the standard by which all updates were greenlit. Incrementally, I was able to completely change the usability and UX of multiple flagship titles over a period of time, without significant pressure on the team or its earning potential. The cooperation of the Art Director and leadership was pivotal in achieving this result.
Onboarding & FTUE
The onboarding phase required significant attention. Its a critical phase where the player not only determines whether the game content is appealing enough to keep them playing, but also whether the game’s pacing suits usage habits and provides enough information to get satisfaction right away, so they feel compelled to keep playing.
Some simple UX rules were applied to the game:
Progressive discovery
Give players just enough information to progress through the current task.Make every element useful
Loading screens were reworked to provide repetitive, useful information.Show, don’t tell
Instructions should be visual. Text information is always reinforced with visuals.
Rewarding good actions
To boost satisfaction, good UX should provide positive reinforcement often.
Frequent desirable actions should be rewarded and celebrated.
Less frequent rewards should amplify the celebration event.
Any incremental progress must be shown through animation and satisfy the need to see progressive improvements in skill, mastery and overall progress.
Consistency & Predictability
The UI underwent a significant overhaul. The key concepts that guided the rework were:
Structural consistency
A core UX heuristic, consistency helps players build muscle memory, habits and routines.Visual consistency
Helps players understand and predict the outcomes of any given interaction.
- Green buttons move you forward in completing a task.
- Panel buttons present you with a choice.
- Panel + Green presents a transaction, whether its claiming a reward or spending currency.
If it works, keep doing it
A viable strategy that works, is something you want to keep repeating.
While big changes are hard to make, especially on live products, incremental changes are easier to justify, schedule and test.
The largescale improvements in Jam City titles happened over a long period, incrementally improving the product feature by feature. Live games can transform completely, as long as the vision is clear and the updates follow that vision.
