I had the amazing opportunity to work with the incredibly talented TFT team in their new startup venture. Working with the team remotely, I joined to help kickstart their UX and UI efforts from their prototype phase.
My responsibilities include taking ownership of UX design, wireframing all core flows, In-game HUD, designing initial social systems, tournaments, establishing tools infrastructure and providing UX Strategy.
Providing Target Audience Insights
Odyssey’s mission is to ignite the competitive spirit for the younger generation. To help them accomplish this mission, I took it upon myself to help the team understand their audience and provided the team with “Lunch and Learn” presentations for audience insights to help differentiate between designing for Gen Z and Millennial gamers.
Some of the key insights towards creating “Third Places” and being hyper community focused played well into Odyssey’s strengths and Discord Community strategy.
Engagement mapping and identifying user funnel activities from Discord
Wireframes & User Flows
I would start by working with stakeholders on identifying the user flow towards their next release as well as provide wireframes and UXUI design concepts for Gameplay HUD, Lobby, Player Profile, Social Systems, and Community / Tournments.
Alpha Core Gameplay User flows
Miro board exercises and user flows for alpha gameplay.
Alpha Gameplay HUD - Mobile Wireframes (Kevin Deng)
Alpha Gameplay HUD - Desktop Wireframes (Kevin Deng)
Beta Launch Gameplay HUD (Mathew DeSanctis)
Social Systems
Friends list and “Party Bus” Playlists
A playful take on a "Party Lobby", the "Party Bus" concept tried to make affordances to the 'impatient' gamer impulses of younger audiences and capture the more "raucous" nature of team playtests. More similar to the six flags or fortnite party bus, the idea was to group players immediately into a game and group to "hop on or off" whenever they decided to join the party. Personifying the group's avatar also had its own benefits.
Samples from Friends List wireframes and “Party Bus” Group features
Team Tournaments and Community Hubs
As a "cheap" MVP for a social system, creating your team and encouraging players into building a community on Discord required a minimum bar of onboarding.
With an example of LoL's Clash Tournament as an "example of what good looks like" creating a team, identity, and joining the tournament event had a 'Shonen Tournament Arc' vibe to it so emblems seemed like a natural choice.
Much later, Omega Strikers would release their first public beta tournament with an industry first "Creator VS Tournament" where players and teams would compete for their favorite streamers in a "winner takes a % of Season 1 profits" prize.
Samples from Team Create Wireframes