Ice
Company
Documents about Ice
Game Developers Conference27 min
Ice Age Adventures: UX Diagnosis for a Live-Ops Game
The presentation outlines a UX-driven diagnostic and redesign process for the live-ops game Ice Age Adventures.
- Streamlining the event interface from three drill-down menus to a single view, combined with proactive launch triggers, increased event participation from 20% to 80%.
- The UX redesign resulted in a 300% increase in total event participation for Ice Age Adventures, a mobile title with 5 million daily active users.
- Heuristic diagnosis identified that excessive cognitive load and poor discoverability were the primary drivers behind stagnant event engagement.
Game Developers ConferenceOct 2017
Game Developers Conference56 min
The Triple Postmortem - Black Ice, 6180 The Moon, The More You Know (About the Devil)
Independent game development thrives when creators prioritize financial stability and disciplined scoping over the pursuit of industry trends.
- Maintain a day job while developing indie games to ensure financial stability and reduce pressure during the long development cycle.
- Actively identify and reach out to your specific target audience at conventions or online communities, as players will not naturally discover niche titles on their own.
- Establish professional standards and clear expectations with contractors, including firm deadlines, to avoid losing assets or stalling development for years.
Game Developers ConferenceJan 2017
Extra Credits12 min
Games You Might Not Have Tried - ep 11 - Find New Games - Extra Credits
This analysis highlights a curated selection of underappreciated video games, focusing on titles that offer unique design philosophies, experimental mechanics, or distinct atmospheric qualities.
- Game design innovation often requires prioritizing unique mechanics or atmospheric risks over mainstream polish, even when this leads to unconventional or flawed final products.
- Platform selection significantly impacts user experience, as demonstrated by The Guild of Dungeoneering, which improved its accessibility and flow by transitioning from PC to tablet.
- Niche titles can successfully streamline complex genres by removing secondary elements; for example, Reverse Crawl focuses exclusively on tactical combat by stripping away the exploration typical of the Heroes of Might and Magic formula.
Extra CreditsNov 2016
Extra Credits7 min
Power Creep in Hearthstone - What It Teaches Us About Games - Extra Credits
Power creep is frequently misunderstood in the context of collectible card games, often being misidentified when developers release cards that are numerically superior to older, underpowered versions.
- True power creep occurs when a card is designed so far above the established power curve that it becomes the new baseline, forcing all future content to compete with that outlier.
- Power creep shrinks the available design space by necessitating a continuous, upward shift in the game's overall power level to keep new content relevant.
- The introduction of a dominant card, such as Hearthstone's Piloted Shredder, forces developers to create specific counters in subsequent sets, which further escalates the game's power requirements.
Extra CreditsSep 2015