Project
Blankos Block Party
Web3 open-world action platformer.
Context
Blankos Block Party is a web3 open-world action platformer. Players battle, race, and socialise across maps built by the dev team and the community.
Worked at Third Kind Games in partnership with Mythical Games.
What I owned
Senior Game Designer. Improved and developed new core gameplay experiences, and supported Live Ops events and content.
Day-to-day
- Designing and developing new weapons, items, and sandbox elements that let in-house and community creators build new experiences.
- Outlining and implementing season-based challenges, experiences, and rewards.
- Working with UI/UX disciplines on matchmaking and onboarding.
Case study: Battle Pass
Designed and implemented the Battle Pass system on a monthly cadence, with Free and Premium reward tracks.
The work surfaced three challenges.
1. Balancing progression
Problem. Players needed meaningful, achievable goals per season, enough to drive daily/weekly engagement, without exhausting content too early or feeling blocked behind monetisation walls.
Approach.
- Analysed daily playtime and challenge completion rates to set XP targets and challenge quantities per tier.
- Categorised challenges by difficulty, time investment, and gameplay variety, mixing quick wins with longer-term goals.
- Defined XP pacing curves for the monthly cadence, allowing completion with consistent play and leaving stretch goals for high-engagement users.
Outcome. A progression curve that incentivised consistent play without overwhelming casual players. Free Track players felt rewarded; Premium upgrades motivated by additional cosmetics and NFTs.
2. NFT drops tied to progression
Problem. NFTs as Battle Pass rewards meant synchronising design and deployment pipelines, balancing scarcity, player progression rates, and blockchain minting and drop-timing constraints.
Approach.
- Collaborated with Mythical Games’ blockchain team to understand minting timelines and constraints.
- Designed NFT drops as mid to late-tier Battle Pass rewards to drive retention through the season.
- Aligned supply with projected player completion rates.
Outcome. Smooth NFT deployment tied to clear progression milestones, with supply matched to projected completion rates.
3. Connecting challenges and progress in the UI
Problem. Early Battle Pass and challenge UI felt disjointed. Players struggled to see how challenges contributed to progression, undermining engagement and clarity.
Approach.
- Ran UX discussions and player-flow reviews to identify friction points.
- Wireframed: integrated progress bars on challenge cards showing XP contribution; clearer tier milestones with preview rewards; reorganised challenge categories for easier navigation.
- Iterated wireframes into final in-game designs with the UI/UX team, aligning to brand style and technical feasibility.
Outcome. Challenge completion felt directly tied to Battle Pass progression. Daily challenge engagement and reward-claim rates both increased.