Trigger Masters
The Ready Games asked me to become the Creative Lead for one of their mobile games. Trigger Masters was a hypercasual mobile game that served as proof of concept for the Ready Games Network technology. I was tasked with creating the game design and art for the main game screen as well as the overall art direction for the game (UI, 3D assets, animations, sound and music).
Initial game template.
The lead product designer had sent the first template for a competitive Shotgun-type mobile game. The game was simple, players on both sides follow a fixed rhythm in order to input 1 of 3 potential actions, Shoot - Block - Reload. Players have limited lives, and the one who successfully shoots their opponent 3 times in a row, without the opponent blocking the shot, wins the game.
Initial design using hands.
Shotgun is traditionally played as a hand game. The initial design was to translate this into a mobile space. However, the flaw of this design was that, since the hands were abstractions of the actions shoot, block and reload, it became hard for players to quickly understand what was going on onscreen.
UA testing 3 different designs through social media.
After coming up with 3 different designs for the game, I produced 3 different UA videos in order for the team to get real world data on which design generated more interest.
TOP-DOWN CAT CASTLE SHOOTER
1ST-PERSON TOY CHARACTER SHOOTER
Click-through rate was much higher with this particular design.
SIDE-SCROLL CAT MECH SHOOTER
Final Character & UI+UX Design
After the test results, the character and gamescreen design was further polished. The character hands were replaced by a toy gun and shield to reduce abstraction and increase visual clarity; and rhythm mechanic was replaced by a simpler timer mechanic.
Final output.
The app was released on the App Store and Play Store in Spring 2021. Along with it, I had created a trailer/ad video for the release of the game.