Four in a Row

Overview

The most successful and loved digital version of Four in a Row! This game was first released in 2012 and I was later on asked to improve its UI and UX in order to keep it fresh and consistent. It wasn't an easy task to touch up something so beloved that was already working well. Luckily, my changes and updates made it even better, generating more downloads and retention among old and new users alike.

Objective

My goal in designing the UI and taking care of the UX of this game was to keep it simple, without over complicating things for players who were so used to how things had been working for years, but at the same time make the improvements visible to all kinds of players. We achieved this objective by keeping the soul of the old design, with small but bold additions to the flow, like the achievements prizes at stake.

Process

Process Step 1: Brainstorming & Product Set Up

Being one of the most successful games OutOfTheBit has ever released, when I was asked to take care of the update of this game, in 2016, it was a great honour. I had to keep things familiar for our existing users and at the same time make it more fresh and smooth for our new ones. In this step of the process I took some time to research and brainstorm what we needed and how we had to carry out these changes.

Process Step 2: Layout & Style Search

Once we were all happy with the staple ideas coming from the previous phase, I started looking for a specific style and layout, where the colours of the game wouldn't clash with the ones of the new retention dialogs appearing at the end of every match (in many of our company's games). In this step that's the main concern: finding a style fitting the new additions to improve the game in a clean and organic way.

Process Step 3: Production

In this last phase of the process my team and I started producing all the assets we needed to apply the changes. It is crucial to keep the style of every little detail consistent to whatever we gained from the previous process steps. In this collection of images there are a few examples of my approach to the completion of this task and a closer look to how I tried to create more retention in this game.