Mighty Pets & Puzzles

Mighty Pets & Puzzles (2019)

https://mightybeargames.com/portfolio-item/mpp/

Mighty Pets & Puzzles was a Match 3 Adventure set in a world slowly being corrupted by evil forces. Players would head into the world with their trusty sidekick – a dog named Potato – and battle monsters via Match 3 boards, gather ingredients from the map, craft meals and potions and gather new allies in the form of pets, three of which could be used in any given Match 3 board for additional effects.

I only worked on this project for around 6 months, but in that time I was heavily involved in progression and combat balancing and map design.

Below you’ll find some highlights of the work I’ve done on this project, as well as some screenshots (at the bottom).

Game Design (Implemented)

Designed system for daily login incentives, using a 7-day login calendar that rewarded player with fixed rewards every day except days 3 and 7, where the rewards were better and included a chance to get some rare pets.
Designed improvement to consumables system during Match 3 battles, to reduce player confusion and increase consumption of such consumables.
Designed FTUE system that provided players with extra guidance via contextual tooltips, narrative triggers and FTUE prompts.
Designed a revamp of the world/zone progression that out of necessity reduced the original scope from “open world exploration” to “linear zone progression” where players at minimum had to fight a pre-defined number of battles as they progressed through the zone, culminating with a “end of zone” boss that would unlock their progress to the next zone.
Balanced pace of player progression and difficulty of monster battles in linear progression system based on analytics data and feedback from players

Additional Game Design (Not Implemented)

Additionally, wrote a number of designs for features that were approved, but ultimately cut due to time and resource constraints, such as:

Designed alternative progression system for both unlocking and upgrading pets, to negate a con of the original design that allowed players to potentially get the best pets available, and upgrade those within the first couple of gameplay sessions. The revamped system would tie more into the player’s progression through zones, and would provide a fixed progression path for upgrading the traits of pets instead of allowing the player to roll the best possible version of such a trait from the start.
Designed extensive FTUE based on the classic Hero’s Journey and its Call to Adventure to give player some narrative context and motivation to play beyond just “fight another battle”.