NOLIMIT CITY
Summary
Whilst working at ComeOn! I had the opportunity to work on Nolimit City (NLC) games, NLC partnered up with ComeOn! to create 4 games that are unique to ComeOn! and run on NLC Back Office. I joined the company just as the games were being created and I became the Lead Designer, designing the game, training and managing other designers on how to work with the templates.
CHALLENGE
The 4 games are different to each other and how they work but ultimately a game of chance for players to win free spins. These 4 games are basically templates that we use to design on top of, think of it like skeletons and we design the graphics as skin to go on top. The real challenge is dependent on the ideas, the marketing team would come up with a theme, i.e Halloween or Christmas and the idea behind it and I would have meetings with the Marketing Team and decide on the game type that would fit their idea. Half of the time the marketing team think one game template would work but the complexity of the idea would warrant a different template instead which would be better to showcase the idea.
At times one game design can be used throughout the ComeOn! brands, as in all countries will use it which means each game would have different language and logos and sometimes even slightly different designs. This means that one design has to please all 6 – 8 stakeholders, usually this kind of game campaign will take a bit longer due to changes.
USERS & AUDIENCE
The majority of users are the players that access ComeOn! sites which span the world from Canada to India, the main concentration are in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark but also in other European countries like Spain, Germany and the UK (operations have now ceased).
ROLES
Our team consisted of me as Lead Designer, I managed a team of 3 designers to work on these games, guiding and helping them to understand the inner workings of the templates and how best to utilise them.
We also have a Product Owner who knows the system intimately and will liaise between the stakeholders, Nolimit City and Back Office.
PROCESS
Once we identified the theme and the idea behind it and have chosen a game template we proceed to the rest of the process which consists of Research, Mockups, Sourcing Illustrations, Animation, Testings and Amendments.
Research
We take on the theme and the idea provided by the Marketing Team and use it for research, let’s take a Halloween design as an example. The idea is they wanted Dracula in the design and not ghosts or trick n treat and to make it scary. I began by thinking of the main scene, it would have to be based in his castle, a big dark cold stone room with medieval decorations like tapestries and metal armours. Dracula himself is in a coffin since this game template is Shootout (an old name that was used to create the first football game), this template is one of the more complex designs that let us do more creatively.
Mockups
We mockup the layouts using scamps, essentially like storyboarding in filmmaking, we go back and forth with the stakeholders to make sure we as designers understood what they wanted and show them in drawings how it would look.
Sourcing Illustrations
Illustrations can be very time-consuming so we encourage our team to source them elsewhere from stock websites, we create a mood board to show different types of illustrations and styles that would fit the theme and we add this on top of the mockups.
Animation
Once we have the mockups and illustrations we start the building of the scene, the main thing here is animation, each game template has its own trigger points which are where players interact with the play the games. These points are fixed and the designers have to take them into consideration, how to make these points clear enough that a new player would instantly know where to interact with the game, we would animate these parts with looped animation like hairline target rotating, the hand with pointing finger etc. We take these over to After Effects to animate, the animation is 1 second long, and this can be in 20fps or 40fps, in this case, the Shootout template has only the middle part that can be animated where the Gift Box and Race templates have animated background.
Testings and Amendments
When the animation is done we export them as pngs and use Texture Packer to make them into Sprite Sheets and JSON files. Every file within the game zip has to match perfectly with the namings on the system since this is using a skeleton, we are basically replacing the other graphics with the new ones using the same names.
We test using a live testing environment on NLC Back Office and we can play them live to see if there are any problems or if the graphics and animation need to be adjusted according to the initial design, there were times when this stage changes the initial design to make the game a better experience.
GAME MECHANICS
All four games are designed for both desktop and mobile, on mobile, players will lose most of the left and the right side but user research suggests players play on both devices and usually do not mind. The games proved to be very successful in client retention and created high engagement on the website.
All the live games have sounds, most of these games you see below were recorded to show stakeholders so sounds were not captured.
50/50
The simplest game out of all four, this template consists of static background and side-by-side static graphics that change depending on if it’s a win or loses.
Players are presented with generic graphics and when clicked these graphic changes to either win graphic or lose graphic these do not require After Effects, the graphics are designed as static pngs and the game adds animation to them.
Example of one game idea but a certain market wants a different design.
Same game template but a completely different design for Mobilautomaten, instead of a scene with elements we used just a simple snow background, this gives more focus to the socks which are the main elements that were used throughout the marketing campaign.
Gift Box
This template is underrated, I personally think this is the most dynamic and with the ability to have animated background albeit very short looped animation.
The trigger point is much bigger than other templates so designing for this section is less complex but the revelation is somewhat dull and short which I have been trying to work with NLC to improve.
Players are presented with a full-on animated scene, the background is animated on a loop for 1 second, that is how long the game allows and since it loops the animation is limited but still makes the game dynamic. Players click in the middle to reveal a prize.
Mobilebet is another brand within ComeOn! Group and this design show everything that is Mobilebet, full-on neon game arcade on the animated background.
Race
The only game template with a different perspective than others, this has a bird-eyes view. As the name suggests this is for racing style, always has 3 participants and they are the trigger points, to start the race players click on their chosen participant and the game starts.
Even how this game works is different to the other three templates, we design the start point where you see the 3 vehicles/participants waiting, then as they race the middle bit is one thin strip of graphic that stretches then when it gets to the end that’s another design, these are static graphics, the only animated elements are the 3 participants which we create on After Effects and use Texture Packer to create sprite sheets and JSON files.
The balloon game is a great way to use this template, instead of designing in bird-eye view, we use the normal way a balloon flies up.
Shootout
This game template is the most used since the animation can be catered to many different themes and styles even though it doesn’t have an animated background. Unlike the 50/50 template the win and lose graphics are animated so players get an immersed experience with the gameplay, the animation is 1 second long and works with either 20fps or 40fps and also sounds can be linked to the animation.
Players get two click points, they either click left or right to get a win or a lose, after 3 clicks they get the result, 1 win Deposit Bonus, 2 wins Freebet, and 3 wins Free Money Bonus, these prizes changes depending on the campaign.
Another example of a market wanting its own design, I made this game for the world cup and when Denmark’s market went live they wanted the slot machine but placed in their style, what you can see is very close to their advertisement video.
CONCLUSION
During my time at ComeOn! I designed and built quite a few NLC games and each has its own challenges, I get to see during testing how a player would navigate the game but the magic here is the graphics and animations, the game templates limit us to its mechanics but we had full rein on how it looks and using our skills to bring the game to live and see the result is what I strive for.
Mentoring other designers was a great experience, after my own trials and failures I had the insights to offer them on the tricks that would get the best out of the templates, and seeing some even surpass what I could do was a proud moment.