While working at Yggdrasil Gaming's Lab I been developing the main gameplay loop as well as UI/UX for our take on a social casino product. We wanted to add some promising multiplayer features to a classic slot experience (PvP, coop), as well as experiment with very hot back then rewarded ad model.
The launch of development was heavily dependent on the commercial activities, so the project eventually ended up in limbo. It was very fun working on it though.
We wanted to try out the journey mechanics for long term retention, so designed a linear experience with unlockable milestones.
The gameplay was meant to be challenge-based to encourage replayability.
We had an idea for a PvP gameplay but were worried about performance issues and server response times. This part would require a separate PoC that we eventually did not develop.
Game mode: Single
Game mode: Coop
Game mode: PvP
Idea for the economy and gameplay model
I wanted to experiment with the latest and greatest (at that time) trend in revenue models – combine IAP with rewarded ads. I designed a series of meta-mechanics that would be unlockable or available at the shop.
The features are meant to take care of the long-term as well as short-term retention and boost engagement.
There was also a very general concept of cross-sell form social to real money gaming, that actually made some sense given the additional factors we were considering (those remain confidential).
The chart below obviously requires serious testing and balancing, the stage that we did not get to.
Some additional screens
Chest mechanics was getting traction in mobile gaming at that time, so we thought to incorporate it to social casino environment.
While designing the player profile card we wondered how many of the "standard" F2P features were actually worth implementing. Should the project been greenlighted, this would be one of the first thing for us to research and potentially cut off.
