Introduction
Nowadays, game apps tend to rely on good gameplay rather than graphics.
One major problem for developers and publishers of this kind of games is describing the game in such details that it gives the users enough information/attraction to decide to continue on the game.
Our focus in this PBA project is the game called AlphaFlip developed by CopenhagenConcept. We aim into developing a better game experience for the upcoming launch of AF. This will include the user (game) experience enhancement, technology implementation and e-mk strategy.
How to play?
Rearrange a row of scrambled letters to the target phrase. Flip a chain of letter to have them in the right order. AF has 4 game modes: Classic Mode, UTP, GTP and Speed Flip.
Personal Implication
Viorela – as a community manager, involvement in game experience development and e-marketing.
Expectations
The theory that a game needs to have a good game experience for its first time gameplay means that the users are interested and focused in so called the “first 5 minutes”.
Our motivation is a contribution to a successful launch for AF on 2 different digital platforms: Fb/iOS.
We want to bring solutions to AF game experience problem and launching strategy. Also to correctly cross-work on both fields, requires a vast amount of research and a clear idea of the final goal: to have a good product that will be marketed in the best strategy possible.
Problem Formulation
Based on the statement of Mads Ehrhardt (the Media Director of CopenhagenConcept) and on our observation and tests, AF is a game that needs to be raised to a higher commercial standard. Therefore:
HOW TO MAKE AF COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL BY IMPROVING ITS GAME EXPERIENCE AND E-MK STRATEGY?
Delimitations
* Focus on the game experience and how it should be integrated into a digital communication strategy * Not change the original game design * Focus only on online marketing and its tools * Not developing a CRM, only online PR and SoMe
Theory and Methodology
“Qualitative research is multi-method in its focus involving an interpretative naturalistic approach” Danzin and Lincoln. We decided to do a more complex qualitative research because we want to look at meanings, knowledge, practice and attitudes towards both game design and e-mk.
E-MARKETING Theories and Methods
Planning the e-mk new plan was very simple to do using the SOSTAC model (which is so complex that it can serve as a theory as well). SOSTAC helped us to ensure that all the relevant factors are considered: the situation we are, the objectives we set, the strategy we plan, the tactics we use, the action we’ll make and the control of the whole plan.
We also made a SMART test of our Objectives and we used the RACE model to simplify measurement and reporting. Everything to have the activities in a structured way.
Most of our decision regarding the marketing plan were taken based on the theory of spreadability, because of its advantages: the intensification of consumer awareness of a new brand and expanding the range of potential markets by introducing a new brand at low costs and low risks. Spreadability may also intensify the loyalty by increasing emotional attachment to the brand. The factors used to pave the way for AF spreadable media are online social networks because they provide mechanism which allow trusted recommendations to spread across different communities of internet.
Our goal is to reach as many people and engage them to spread the news that a new game is coming to town!!! With this we need to make the people care about the product by marketing it in new ways via the right platforms.
GAME DESIGN Theories and Methods 1. Mechanics and Metrics of Game Feel 2. Puzzle Game Mechanics 3. The Flow Channel 4. Game Reward Design 5. Endogenous Value

1. Mechanics and Metrics of Game Feel
Game Feel can be divided into 3 parts of definitions: Real-time control, simulated space and polish.
There are no standard measurements for gamefeel.
Players or designers don’t attempt to measure or compare gamefeel of one game to another at a level deeper than is necessary for casual conversation and game production. We always have vague descriptions.
There are common elements in the physical design of gaming platform, the relationship between physical design of gaming platform, the relationship between physical and virtual movement and the design of the virtual worlds we interact with through gamefeel.
We have to think gameplay system as a whole (player, input device, programmed reaction from the game system) and identify which elements enable us to make a meaningful comparison between the feel of our game and other similar games. Therefore we can understand how to construct a game with a good gamefeel by insight instead of emulation (effort or desire to equal or excel others).
We can make 2 different kind of measurements from live players: hard and soft metrics. The hard metrics are quantifiable (button pressing frequency). Soft metrics are things like fun, laughter and request for more play (not easy to measure but as important as the hard ones).
In our measurement of the gamefeel of AF we will employ (To put to use or service) both hard and soft metrics. 2. Puzzle Game Mechanics
There are 10 principle of puzzle design and we will evaluate AF with these. We’ll answer to these q: * What are the puzzles in AF? * Should we have more puzzles or less? * Which of the 10 principles of puzzle design apply to each of our game elements?

3. The Flow Channel theory
This is one of the most interesting and effective theories of the game design.
= is the state of mind that makes us stay focus on an activity (when we lose the flow we switch to another activity so we need to keep our player in the FC for as long as possible).
Factors (5) that make a person stay in the flow when it comes to a game: * Challenge vs Skills * Anxiety vs Boredom * Difficulty (balance)

4. Game reward Design – concept
Players play games to be rewarded (human need). They need to be rewarded/evaluated favorably. Therefore as a well-designed and balanced game reward system is the key in any game.
We need to give the right reward at the right time and right moment. The players should feel comfortable with the rewards.
We’ll focus on 2 general issues that drove the design process of the reward system of AF: * Rewards vs Punishment * Casual Gameplay vs Hardcore GP

5. Endogenous Value
= it is achieved when some objects in the game or some parts of the game have some kind of value to the player.
Giving EV to the game is interesting and desirable
It’s easier for the player to come back to play again and increase the value (even the game isn’t that fun)

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Team members with different skills that complement for this project. Working places and SCRUM + e-tools like Trello, Podio, skype, gmail, Facebook, dropbox etc.
SCRUM is an agile process that allows us to focus the highest business value in the shortest time. It has a product backlog (list of requirements), a sprint backog (list of tasks) and a team, a product owner and a scrum master. With this framework we did a little of everything in the same time.
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Objective – What is the task? Give a better experience for the launch
Problem Formulation – How to make AF a commercial success by improving the game experience and e-marketing strategy?
Epistemology – knowledge on game design, e-mk, PM
Ontology – game test data, statistics, interviews etc.
Methodology – Primary Research (obs, FC, interviews) + Secondary Research (literature study, articles, statistics etc).
General Methodology – Qualitative (individual study on FC, int, obs) + Quantitative (statistics on FC)
Resources and Validity – Bibliography, appendix and data statistics

RESEARCH
Our research has been done in order to have the confirmation that the main problem we have raised in this study is real and has some causes.
Primary research: 1. Observation: how the project is managed from 3 different continents, what is the work needed to be done before launching, what are the strategies and how they are decided, how the game design and e-mk are related and depend one of the other. 2. Interviews: to have a full perspective about AF from game specials like Neal Sinno (VP Arkadium) and Don Ryan (Slingo Inc). They said what the game feels like and what it needs to reach more users. 3. Focus Groups: a very helpful decision-making tool to obtain reactions, opinions, preferences, to have an idea about the target group, to learn about the users’ behavior and their needs
Secondary research:
Based on literature and bibliography + extra references from the Library and the web. Also from the company’s road map of the game. Statistics about casual games, players, mobiles, e-mk strategies etc.
Conclusion: Primary research gave us quality findings and the secondary research more quantitatives. We have focused on the users and their needs. We have observed how the work is done in an international environment, we have interviewed international specialists in game industry and we have conducted 2 FG where 8 people played the game and discussed about it. We have looked into game statistics, users’ demographics, e-mk tools, strategies etc. everything to have a picture of the market and its users we are going to launch AF for. Analysis and insights

User Modelling: Persona – Touch Screeners, Soccer Moms, Puzzle Fans
Why? To have an image of our users and to use them as a guide on how to think about what types of solutions will resonate with our audience. Once we’ve identified our personas we will indentify which tactics align with each.
TOWS Analysis why? Because it’s very important for a company/product to consider the THREATS and OPORTUNITIES before the WEAKNESSES and STRENGTHS.
So it helps lead to productive discussions about what is going on in the external environment rather than talk about what a company is good or bad at.

EXTERNAL | INTERNAL | THREATS | WEAKNESSES | Many substitutes | AF’s build-in selling method isn’t strong enough | Highly competitive industry | AF’s puzzle design has errors | Big Companies, big budgets for advertisement | Doesn’t have engagement for the players | OPPORTUNITIES | Cant optimize its app store ranking | Casual Games is rising | STRENGTHS | AF can gain profits | Free-to-play | AF position occupies a certain niche in the market | Interesting concept | | Has a variety of playing modes | | It’s flexible with collaborations |

Game Design Analysis
The Mechanics and Metrics of Game Feel
The gamefeel is real-time control of virtual objects in a simulated space with interactions emphasized by polish.
Great GF games convey 5 different types of experiences to the player: 1. Sensation of control 2. The pleasure of Learning 3. Extension of senses 4. Extension of identity 5. Interaction with a unique physical reality within the game 6. Spatial Simulation 7. Polish
MECHANICS
Puzzle games mainly convey 2 types of experiences: The pleasure of learning, practicing and mastering a skill.
Where does AF fit in this diagram? * Does it have real-time control? * Does it have simulated space? * Does it have POLISH? (means graphic, sound, animation, resolution or any performance feature that can enhance players’ feelings) AF goes in nr. 7.
AF is a casual game without a grand game world or intensive character control, therefore POLISH became the only mechanism for the game to develop its own game feel.
AF’s polis is relatively good. It has fully developed, cartoonish visual concept and smooth control performance.
METRICS
Every designer knows it: the only way to take the temperature of a design in progress is to watch the players play the game. The output of a game system is the player experience. To master it we’ve got to measure it. To measure it we need live players.
What’s important to measure? 1. Input – the physical construction of the device through which player intent is expressed to the system and how this change the gamefeel (FB and mobile devices + touchscreen, mouse/ tap and click for AF). 2. Response – how the system processes, modulates and responds to player input in real-time. AF doesn’t have problems on its input sensitivity. No lagging or delayed responses appeared. 3. Context – the effect of simulated space game feel. How collision code and level design give meaning to real-time control (includes what the player can interact with). AF has the moveable letter block for the player to flip. 4. Polish – effects that artificially enhance impression of a unique physical reality in the game. AF has only word puzzles to solve. It has proper graphics in order to present itself as a mature commercial game, but the sound effects are quite boring. 5. Metaphor – how the game’s representation and treatment change player expectations about the behavior movement and interactions of game objects. In some fields metaphor could be considered what makes up a person schema or mental models. AF isn’t doing enough to make players feel interested while making the game challenging. 6. Rules – how arbitrary relationships between abstracted variables in the game change player’s perception of game objects, define challenges and modify sensations of control. AF has the trying to flip the letters in the right order.
GAMEFEEL as a FRAMEWORK - conclusion
Most elements of AF were explored. While the framework proved useful analyzing many of the elements which likely to make the game a success, there are still elements that could not be explained. Therefore any modification or addendum to the game feel framework should be done in which player’s motivation is considered.
It is proposed that players are willing to complete more tasks or accept certain elements when there is sufficient reward.
PUZZLE MECHANICHS: the 10 principles 1. Make the Goal Easy Understood 2. Make it Easy to get Started 3. Give a Sense of Progress 4. Give a Sense of Solvability 5. Increase Difficulty Gradually 6. Pyramid Structure Extends Interest – people have one highest point 7. Parallelism Lets the Player Rest 8. Hints Extend Interest 9. Give the Answer 10. Perceptual Shifts are a Double Edged Sword
Answers to the 3Q we set earlier: * The puzzles in AF are letter blocks that need to be flipped. * We need more puzzles in AF to increase the players’ interest * The following principles of puzzle mechanics apply to AF: 1,2,3
THE FLOW CHANNEL
One of the most interesting and effective concepts of game design and applied to AF has a very positive impact on the game experience.
The FC = is the state of mind that makes us stay focused on an activity. When u lose it u switch to another activity, so obviously our aim is to keep our users in the FC for as long as possible.
Factors that make a player stay in the FC: 1. Challenges 2. Skills 3. Anxiety 4. Boredom 5. Difficulty balance
A player starts a game feeling comfortable because of his skills at a low level of challenge. If the challenge of the game rises too slow the player will switch to state 2 which is the boredom realm. If it rises too fast, he will switch to state 3 which is the Anxiety zone. Both, boredom and anxiety drive the player to frustration – the worst word a game designer can hear about his game. If a player feels that a game is too easy or too difficult, the blame is on the game designers. The player is always right because he’s an expert about what he likes and doesn’t about his own FC. It is our task as designers to fit the game into the FC of the maximum nr of potential users.
GAME REWARD SYSTEM
Another important concept in game design. We will focus on 2 general issues that drove the design process of the reward system of AF: 1. Rewards vs Punishment 2. Casual GP vb Hardcore GP
Our goal is to offer a game reward system that includes rewards for both casual players and puzzle fans while avoiding punishment. To achieve this we can design a new game reward system in layers – this means that the player initially only sees the obvious objectives and gets the obvious rewards (first layers) but after playing a while he discovers more complicated challenges with more satisfying rewards.
The first layer is to solve the puzzle. The reward is satisfaction of completion, the praise in the rewards screen the score and the following unlocked puzzles. The layer 2 is to see the unfilled stars on the reward screen.
The bonus System. Hardcore players tolerate a certain level of punishment (cause it enhances EV) but casual players hate punishment. AF needs to be positively rewarding players instead of punishing them. The advantage of positive balancing (rewarding) is that both casual and hardcore players love it.
So we put a bonus system into consideration. All punishing features should be reconverted to bonuses (time bonus, no/undo restart/hint bonus) which are translated to points which give the star numbers.
Game Center – in AF is the rope that ties everything together: moves and time are related to the score. Score is related to stars and achievements. Achievements are related to leader boards which are related to the score again. It’s a nice and elegant cycle that works really well.
ENDOGENOUS VALUE

From our point of view giving EV to a game can be done in 2 ways: Difficult Tasks and Internal Economies.
In general things harder to achieve have more value than the easier ones. Internal economies are a powerful mechanic to gain EV but it has to be in a well balanced system. EV is not related to fun *game/human paradox.
Forcing EV no EV at all but regular value. All free-to-play games are included here. When real money is introduced to the equation, talking about EV has no sense.
AF is a simple game and it’s impossible to introduce all these mechanics to a little game like this one. We can always try to increase the EV by increasing the difficulty of some tasks. We hope that the players who achieve the maximum nr of stars consider their progress valuable. We can try to be creative and design an in-game currency item and develop an in-game economy so that EV will increase.

THE SOLUTION FOR GAME EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Game Play Development
We won’t change the main gameplay mechanics of AF but some minor changes to enhance its GP experience by: 1. Organize puzzles into categories and levels 2. Provide direct hints 3. Game reward design

1. Categories and Levels: we need to keep players more focused on the game by applying the FRACTAL FLOW CHANNEL to the game. Word categories can be unlocked with stars. Each cat has 200 phrases, provides more content and freedom. Difficulty levels will be in every game from the beginning. The player can chose the difficulty level: Beginner, Normal, Hard, Expert. 2. HINTS: hints sometimes are crucial to a successful puzzle design. We’ll provide 3 free hints but players can buy more with stars. 3. Game Reward System: we’ll add more rewards and ways to get them. We’ll make stars collectable and usable. We’ll add the bonus system and at the end players will see them all. Stars will always be visible as well as the shopping cart for buying stars.
In-Game Sales Methods:
Profit is crucial. We’ll use the stars to keep the players in the FC. Stars are used to unlock categories, exchange hints, unlock levels directly. The purchase: playing, in-game purchase, daily reward from leaderboard.
Remove Ads. We decided not to put advertisement in the game as in the traditional way with banners, but to emphasize the companies and main sponsors’ logos in the game and add a button in the main screen with a link to a campaign.
User Engagement: by encouraging them to submit phrases, though social media and leader board *top30 daily rewards.
Technical Requirements: iOS tools like XCODE is a must to code the changes, make the right settings in the app store management. Run a test in SAND box environment to make sure the purchase system is functional.
THE E-MARKETING PLANNING FOR AF

In order to create an actionable plan using integrated communications to engage and persuade our app’s users, we’ll use the SOSTAC framework (Paul Smith ’99) which summarizes the different stages that should be involved in a mk strategy from development to implementation. 1. SITUATION analysis – where are we now? Poor website, no e-communication, existing SoMe channels, no activity, no budget and no final product. Market analysis: more women are playing social games and they spend more time that men. +35 and everything is growing!!! Target audience: touch screeners, puzzle fans and soccer moms. 2. OBJECTIVES: build a sustainable legions of loyal users. Make AF commercial with a huge nr of fans and users. The business goal is to convert users into customers. E-communication purpose is to have an effective activity on the right platforms. SMART test:
Specific – 100.000 downloads from iOS and 10.000 likes on Facebook by 2015. 30.000 downloads/users on both platforms and 5.000 likes on FB by March 2014.
Measurable
Actionable – community manager, project manager, PR specialist, game master
Reasonable
Timed – 3 months 3. STRATEGY: it lays the objectives we set and how we are going to execute them. We need to make AF commercial success, attract new users, engage them and convert them. ASO – the process of improving the visibility of a mobile app in the app store. Involving users by inviting and supporting them to submit phrases. Social Media Campaigns and ADS Campaigns. Everything to support the goal of making a successful launch and to gain as many users as possible for AF. Applying the theory of Spreadability. The new e-mk strategy includes more user engagement with contests, social media campaigns and ASO – to reach users, become spreadable and have a productive mk plan. 4. TACTICS: E-mk tools, new specialized staff, resources existing, budgets planned, getting sponsors, limit to online environment. KPI’s: Installations, Daily Active Users, WAU, MAU, Daily Sessions, Sessions per User, Session Duration, Total Play Time. E-MK MIX: e-product AF, e-placement: FB and iOS, e-promotion: social platforms and related website.
OVP: AF is the new game for all the players who love word and puzzle games like Words with Friends or Rubik’s Cube. Combining strategy, time and smarts you get to play a challenging game with your family and friends. Why to play? Being fast is easy. But the player who is both fast and use his strategic thinking will win! And that’s where the FUN is!
RACE digital framework: it summarize the key online marketing activities that need to be managed as part of digital marketing. It covers the full customer life cycle and helps manage and improve results.
REACH: ASO, SoMe, Contests
ACT: workspaces, PODIO, right staff, follow the Launch Playbook
CONVERT: focus to convert from downloads into users.
ENGAGE: SoMe campaigns, contests, rewards, submitting phrases, promotion as a community they can join for: knowledge, entertainment, competitions, friends, challenges, fun etc. 5. ACTION: hiring new staff, coordinating the plan, use the existing resources + e-mk tools, establish the budgets. 6. Control: Track, monitor and measure related to our KPI’s and objectives. Daily and weekly via addressable channels. CONCLUSION
All in one project: EASY time in discovering the problems, interesting experience doing the research with specialists and users, also a challenging and fun time developing the solutions based on the theories and concepts we have learnt in the last 3 semesters. Our team was built because our skills complement.
Problem: How to make the app game AlphaFlip commercially successful by improving the game experience and the e-marketing strategy?
The structure of the PBA project is: starting with a product and a big problem that can be divided in 2 subproblems that cover 2 different areas: game design and e-marketing. These 2 are related and can relate one without the other. We came with new features ideas for the game design to improve the user experience and we developed an e-mk strategy to reach more users, to make the product commercially success and to engage the users as much as possible.
We have done long sets of research and we believe in our solutions. But we are aware of the constantly changing game industry and the possibilities out there. We know we could have done more regarding our research, analysis, solutions and implementations. Therefore, this is our final PBA project that shows and proves our interest and learnings during this education time.
Perspective: things we could’ve done * Multi player version – this would have change the game design again and the e-mk strategy plan as well. * Launching on other app markets like Google Play or Windows Phone Store * Transforming the game into an advergame * Involving the 3rd party companies to help improving the concept and strategies * More mockups to show how everything looks like from the log-in to in-game purchase * More bridges between our fields – more correlations between e-mk and game design * More concepts and theories * More examples