Production - Marie Mejerwall | Games Consultant

SERVICE SUMMARY

CREATIVE COACHING:

GAMES IN PRODUCTION

For games in production, the sessions Marie holds vary depending on how close they are to release. Early on, time it spent looking at the core gameplay – how to increase it’s depth, tighten mechanics and add features that makes it stand out from its competitors. The feature set and roadmap is constantly re-evaluated as the game builds out its identity, and new cool opportunities and functionalities arise. The sessions Establish Experience Goals, Design Structure & Scope, Depth & Mastery Layering are most common in this phase and can help with the above. 3-6 months before release is usually focused targeting development efforts to maximize the player experience and game appeal on release. This is when a lot of cuts typically happen, and the game hones in on its core experience. The team also starts looking at social features, retention mechanics and final touches on their progression. They might still add new features that provide great value or help round out the experience. Sessions The Steam Page, Target Audience Widening and Social Mechanics Review are the most useful for this phase. Close to release, the focus is often on player onboarding, the timing of the beats (hype moments) and how to make the game more accessible and intuitive. Sharpen Beats and Intensity and FTUE & Onboarding are valuable sessions to improve both.

TYPICAL GOALS

Improve the gameplay

Focus the remaining development on high impact areas

Stand out more from competitors and get an edge on them

Improve first-time user experience (FTUE)

Add mechanics that promote retention

Strengthen the game's appeal to its target audience

Widen the game's appeal to increase playerbase

POPULAR SESSIONS

General Advice

Session where the team presents their current plans and design challenges and gets Marie’s advice on how to best move forward.

Establish Experience Goals

We empathize with the player feeling and emotion whilst playing the game and establish experience goals that aligns the team around what they are creating, and how it should turn out.

Design Structure & Scope

We reconsider the current roadmap and use the feature list to lay a puzzle that visualizes the design structure and helps us determine what’s core, what to cut, and what to put on hold.

Depth & Mastery Layering

Exercise where we distill the games core gameplay challenges, map out how they are layered and complement the design to ensure the game is stimulating in both mechanical, tactical and potential coordination aspects.

The Steam Page

Session where we learn to design Steam Pages to imagine what the game will be for launch – and see what additional features could make it stand out more from its competitors.

Target Audience Widening

In this session, we discuss which player segments your game already caters to, evaluate if there are any additional ones that could enjoy the game and identify new potential features that would appeal to them.

Social Mechanics Review

This session reviews the social mechanics in the game discusses what else can be added to give players new activities and goals to achieve to ultimately increase viralness, stickiness and retention.

Sharpen Beats and intensity

We refine the beats (hype moments) and intensity to ensure players get an enjoyable experience filled with ebbs and lows to always keep the player engaged without ever over-stimulating.

FTUE & Onboarding

Session where we map out the FTUE and early player journey, identify potential churn moments and plan how to get players to the hook as safely and fast as possible. We also review how & when to them engaged in the game progression.

New sessions are created on demand and as per Marie’s expertise.

TESTIMONIALS

"Leaves nothing to chance"

"Marie has a been coaching one of our teams in early stage of development and she and her model is very thorough, leaving nothing to chance when it comes to work out a vision for their upcoming title."

Per Holmén

Sweden Game Startup

"Brought new perspectives"

"Marie helped us to understand our game World of Pirates better, to analyze our competition, and to identify key features for our next development steps. She researched thoroughly in a short time and her game analysis brought to light new perspectives for our game. We are looking forward to our future collaborations!"

Edwin Tuzar

Zartu Games

"Great experience"

"It was a great experience having Marie over for a game design bootcamp. She took the team through several creative exercises that challenged the status quo of our game vision and triggered interesting thoughts. She showed great flexibility by jumping into any topic we needed and even did several of her talks at our request. We really appreciated and respected how she could help us on so many fronts." [...]
"After a week of bootcamp, our team is now well set to tackle our coming milestones, but her expertise could really be helpful again in the future. “

Game team

Supercell

"Understands the players"

"Nowadays, in our crowded and competitive market, it is essential to understand the motivation of our players in order to serve them best. Marie is perfect for that task, by switching into the perspective of the clients in order to identify room for improvements and to question ourselves about the offered quality. This skill is very valuable as it also includes a more unbiased mindset and the attitude of remaining hungry for improvements."

Henning Schmid

Klang Games

"Highlighted ways to greatly improve the game"

"Marie helped out during the development of KreatureKind, offering her insights into the potential of the game in general and the progression design in particular. After a meeting in which we discussed the fundamentals of the game, Marie played through the current build and offered a detailed evaluation of the game’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as suggestions for improvements.

The input from Marie has been very helpful, and has highlighted ways to greatly improve the game when continuing the development. Her feedback has been concrete and clear, and overall easy to act upon. I highly recommend Marie to anyone looking to improve the design of their game!"