Bee Express

Casual Game

This is an activity based on the game design of "Family Farm Seaside". The purpose of it is to raise the daily active rate of players. I acted as the lead game designer in this project. This feature was shipped in December 2019.

Demo Video

Project Info

Platform: Mobile (Android&IOS)
Date of Completion: 2019.11
Category: Casual Game
Controller: Mobile Phone
Art Style: 2D Cartoon
Preferred Resolution: N/A
Contribution: Game Designer
Team Size: 1 Designer, 1 Programmer, 4 Artists, 2 QA
Download Link: Family Farm Seaside

Background and Design Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to encourage players to participate in the main gameplay of the game, increase the daily-active rate, and encourage players to earn some game resources from the activity. It needs to have a certain degree of difficulty so that the player will not complete it quickly in a short period of time. In addition, players can also pay to complete this activity. In short:

Daily active rate.
A little difficulty so players will not complete it quickly.
Encourage players to earn some game resources.
Players can pay to complete it.
Related to the main gameplay of "Family Farm Seaside".

Game Flow

First, considering that the user group of my game is middle-aged women, although this activity's gameplay needs to be a little difficult, it can't be too much, so I need to add a little action element to it. Second, it needs to be related to the main gameplay of the game, which is farming simulating, so to start the game, players have to manage their farms, and it needs to have some art elements about small animals. Third, to allow players to continue participating in the activity within limited days, every day the first chance they participate in the game should be free, and the number of "tickets" required for participation needs to increase within a day. Fourth, simply set a price for resources so players can pay for them.

To reach the goal of this activity, I came up with the idea of "Bee Express":

Daily active rate: free first-time and main gameplay resources.
Difficulty: add some action elements, which is the main gameplay:
1. Long-press the screen to move the main character.
2. Avoid colliding with enemies(butterflies).
3. The longer distance the bee moves, the more points players can get from a game.
Pay to complete: set prices for resources.
Related to the main gameplay: make the character as a bee and players should manage their farms to start the game.
Social: in the game, players can see where their Facebook friends stopped.

I also designed some skills that the bee(main character) can use:

Increase the points players can get from a single game.
Pause the movement of the butterfly for a certain period of time.
Immune to a butterfly's collision for one time.

Thus, the game flow is:

Level and Numerical Design

It was my first time designing and developing a feature in an existing commercial game, but I notice that to design a simple game, building several levels by putting objects in the level could be heavy work, so I designed several formulas and rules to constrain the objects in the game so that they can be generated according to the program.

For example, the points players can get in a game is:

C3, C4, and C5 are parameters I can adjust and D is the distance the bee moves.

The farther the bee moves, the more points the player can get.

In addition, I also designed many formulas. The following are some of them.

Art Design

After I accurately expressed my ideas with the artists, they actively cooperated to create very good works. In addition, because this activity has been held in the game many times, the artists also designed a series of in-game decorations.

What I Learned

How to design activities in an existing game.
How to accurately deliver requirements to the team of programmers and artists.
How to design numerical formulas and levels.
How to publish an in-game activity online.