Kingdoms at War is a mobile PvP strategy game.
Players compete with each other, trade with each other in a deep trading economy, and collaborate in groups of up to 120 players. They decorate their castle with furniture, and undertake quests advancing a narrative that has been running for over a decade.
Hexavia, The Raven Queen deepened KAW’s monetization, and challenged experienced users with new twists on old mechanics.
Year over Year, the quarter I shipped Hexavia had a 50% increase in revenue growth.
Users were encouraged to trade chests and keys dropped by Hexavia with other users, strengthening KAW’s focus on player-to-player trade.
Aotromos of the Abyss was designed to challenge our heavily invested userbase.
Since KAW was, at time of release, over 11 years old, certain elements had become predictable, and players were incredibly powerful.
When designing Aotromos I wanted to challenge these hardcore players.
Using SQL to determine the median mechanical power of my target audience, I realised that our users were far more powerful than we had thought.
I worked with an engineer to increase the maximum possible power of our raid bosses.
While inspecting code that hadn’t been touched in over five years, I noticed that I could twist certain mechanics.
Aotromos shipped with difficulty numbers over 180x higher than anything else in KAW, and players were elated.
I also designed, prototyped, scripted, tested, and shipped a new gameplay mode, which allowed users to wager some of their gold in PvP.
Unique flair is applied to the most successful users allowing people to show off, and also highlighting high-value targets for other participants.
I also took care that the new mode would not spill over into other modes of PvP, so those who don’t wish to engage do not need to.
Before I left KAW, I trained a junior designer to replace me, while we were both fully remote.