I worked with a small cross-functional team to take Word Zoo from prototype through production release, owning the level design direction and core word-level experience. My work included redefining the core word mechanics, improving the UX around word creation, shaping player progression, and establishing the level design principles used to build the released content set.

I created the level design best practices that guided production of 250 released levels across 6 habitats and 7 hazard types. Across 7 major releases and 10 A/B test variants, I analyzed player behavior and KPI trends to refine onboarding, pacing, hazard introduction, level difficulty, and progression. These iterations contributed to improvements across retention, ROAS, session length, and sessions per day.

I also created a prototype framework to help the team rapidly explore new gameplay concepts and developed 4 additional prototype concepts.

At Pixelberry, I worked on five prototype concepts targeted at underserved audience opportunities. I researched the App Store, competitive landscape, and market gaps to identify “purple ocean” opportunities and presented those opportunities to the C-Suite. Once a concept was greenlit, I defined the product vision, MVP scope, core pillars, success criteria, and prototype plan with the team.

My role covered both design direction and production ownership: creating schedules, assigning tasks, defining feature requirements, coordinating cross-discipline execution, supporting Unity implementation, and synthesizing prototype feedback and next-step recommendations for leadership.

After stepping into the Game Director role, I continued guiding prototype development from concept through validation. Our final concept showed strong promise across players of multiple genders, ethnicities, and ages. After the studio acquisition, priorities changed and I transitioned to the Choices team, where I analyzed feature gaps, roadmap opportunities, and new-user funnel flows to help bring the product closer to industry parity.

At Machine Zone / AppLovin, I collaborated with product leadership and the Design Director to define roadmap priorities, improve design practices, onboard designers, and maintain balance across large-scale 4X strategy systems. My responsibilities spanned heroes, troops, monsters, buildings, events, PvE, PvP, KvK, co-op features, guilds, research, skills, rewards, and progression systems.

Across more than 250 releases, I owned major systems and content expansions including approximately 1,000 building levels, 50 special features, 32 heroes, 6 astrals, 50 monsters, 20 new troop types, 50 realm bosses, and new PvE tuning. Each release required careful tuning to maintain balance across the large interconnected framework of a 4X strategy game. In addition to release ownership, I created tools in Google Sheets and Apps Script to automate large portions of content creation, reducing implementation time, QA validation time, tuning errors, and shipped bugs.