Creating an innovative game in a stagnant market space.

The Ten Square Games team envisioned a game for a rather stagnant market space—but wanted to design it by starting with the player in mind, not just making another knockoff game. It’s a crowded and competitive space, so they wanted to innovate and reach an audience beyond the typical idea of who plays that type of game.

Partnering with Solsten to assess audiences in the competitive strategy and RPG space using Navigator.

The team used what they’d learned about their game’s audience to define the user journey: initial hook, core mechanics, secondary mechanics, and long-term commitment. Each was carefully strategized to maximize audience resonance down the road. The team looked in depth at what art styles each user persona would like, leveraging consistencies to define an overarching look while pulling in fun and unexpected elements that would heighten appeal to the two most valuable personas. Key to it all: the team was able to test on people who resembled their actual personas—and thus their eventual players.

Early alignment leads to streamlined development.

Since Ten Square Games and Solsten’s audiences have been aligned from the game’s very inception, development cycles have been twice as fast as usual, and Ten Square Games has been able to create far fewer prototype iterations.

It’s added up to money saved, time saved, clear team direction, faster launch, and, with the game set to launch shortly, they anticipate far better metrics than usual.