PRIZE KINGDOMS

Mobile Board Game · F2P · Sweepstakes Integration · Live Ops

Prize Kingdoms is a mobile board game that combines luck, strategy, and real-world prizes. It’s a first-of-its-kind experience that I helped shape from early development through live service. I worked across feature design, systems design, and level design, while also serving as the Product Owner, helping to guide development and keep creative goals aligned across departments.

This page breaks down some of the key features and systems I helped bring to life, from gameplay mechanics to sweepstakes integration to live content and beyond.

Game Trailer

Role Responsibilities

Game Designer Responsibilities

As a Game Designer, I was responsible for ideating and defining core features, systems, and live content that shaped the player experience. My role combined creative design with hands-on collaboration across departments to bring gameplay ideas from concept to execution.

As a Game Designer, I:

  • Designed new features based on genre expectations, team capabilities, player psychology, and executive direction

  • Acted as the design lead and point of contact for feature implementation, overseeing progress and aligning development across departments

  • Collaborated closely with engineers, analysts, artists, producers, and UX designers to bring each feature to life

  • Documented game systems through wireframes, logic flows, and feature briefs

  • Identified friction points and live-tuned features post-launch to improve player experience and business performance

  • Monitored player behavior and live KPIs to identify design opportunities, improve balance, and inform updates during live service

Product Owner Responsibilities

As Product Owner, I was responsible for driving design priorities forward across teams, managing feature progress, and ensuring design goals translated clearly into production.

Key responsibilities included:

  • Kicking off new features with clear documentation, scope, and intended outcomes

  • Tracking development progress and surfacing design risks or blockers for resolution

  • Providing consistent feedback on timing, visual clarity, gameplay intent, and edge cases

  • Aligning multiple teams — including design, engineering, QA, and production — on the requirements, status, and intent of each new feature

  • Collaborating with producers to manage timelines and backlog status, ensuring delivery aligned with both player experience and business needs

  • Acting as a cross-functional liaison with third-party partners, including UI/UX vendors, legal advisors, and prize fulfillment vendors.

Impact:

  • Redesigned the onboarding flow, resulting in a 22% increase in completion rates

  • Developed retention-focused systems that improved Day 1 retention by 18%, Day 3 by 12%, and Day 7 by 8%

  • Helped the game achieve over $1 ARPDAU during the first 3 months after launch

Game and Feature Design

Below is an early mockup of the board layout alongside the feature key and a screenshot from the final version of the game.

Each tile on the board triggers a unique feature when landed on. I designed the full feature set, including tile behavior, reward logic, and progression hooks, in close collaboration with a wide range of departments. One example is the Heist Tile, which evolved from early mockups into a fully integrated gameplay feature that played a key role in economy tuning. By introducing a risk of gold theft between players, it encouraged spending and created a dynamic back-and-forth that boosted engagement, increased gold usage per session, and supported stronger progression across levels.

One example is the Heist Tile, which evolved from early mockups into a fully integrated gameplay feature that played a key role in economy tuning. By introducing a risk of gold theft between players, it encouraged spending and created a dynamic back-and-forth that boosted engagement, increased gold usage per session, and supported stronger progression across levels.

Other Features

  • PvP Attacks!

  • Mini Games!

  • Season Pass!

  • Limited Time Events!

  • Collectable Game Pieces!

Sweepstakes Engine

One of my proudest contributions was leading the design of an industry-first in-game sweepstakes engine. This fully integrated system allowed players to earn “Tickets” an an in-game currency, enter a variety of sweepstakes, and claim real prizes, all within the app.

What I Designed:

  • A Ticket currency economy, with entry flows and prize tiers for short-, medium-, and long-term engagement

  • UI/UX wireframes and logic for sweepstakes states, entries, winner announcements, and prize claiming

  • Player flows for both the U.S. and Canada, designed around differing legal requirements and user experience expectations

  • The admin tools used to manage prize inventory, activate sweepstakes, and monitor redemptions

I served as the bridge between:

  • Engineering and a third-party sweepstakes provider, translating technical requirements into usable flows

  • Our own legal team, ensuring design decisions met regulatory standards

  • The player, advocating for clarity, ease of use, and trust in the system

This wasn’t just a feature — it was a fully operational, legally compliant, multi-region sweepstakes system baked directly into a mobile game. It's also patented, with my wireframes included in the documentation. Several additional patents are pending.

Most importantly, I didn’t do this alone. I worked with an incredible team of developers, artists, and legal experts who helped build something ambitious, exciting, and genuinely rewarding for players. I’m deeply proud to have been part of that effort.

Level Design

Designing levels in Prize Kingdoms was about more than layout — it was about creating personality. Each board needed to feel distinct, fun to play, and reflective of its own internal logic and rhythm.

As a Level Designer, I:

  • Created board layouts with unique visual themes, upgradeable cities, and custom tile placements

  • Balanced tile distribution to maintain engaging pacing, drive player choices, and highlight core mechanics

  • Developed progression logic between levels to introduce new features, reward mastery, and keep the experience feeling fresh

  • Worked with environment artists to ensure each level felt like a real place, full of detail and movement

  • Documented layout plans, gameplay intent, and feature interaction zones for the entire content pipeline

Level design has long been one of my favorite aspects of game development, especially in the context of board games. There’s something timeless about spatial design and the tactile joy of moving across a board. Working on Prize Kingdoms gave me the opportunity to explore how modern board game design principles could be adapted for digital play — bringing classic ideas into a mobile-first environment.

A huge shoutout to our incredible art team. I pitched some absolutely wild level ideas, and they always came back with visuals that exceeded my expectations. Their attention to detail, creativity, and technical polish elevated every level in the game, and I’m truly grateful for their collaboration.