Designing a Fun Social World With Bin Weevils

I had the fantastic opportunity to help build the online kids game Bin Weevils, working on various seasonal games and UX improvements.

My Role: UX Design, Game Design, Some Asset Creation

Background

I was brought on to the team at 55 Pixels as a production executive to research and develop improvements for the popular online game, Bin Weevils. My role included:

Research on new game modes and features

Creating design documentation for new game modes and features

Working with artists to create final assets as well as creating UI and game assets myself

Managing scrums of artists and developers to deliver on time.

Creating a Storefront For In-Game Items

I started off by mapping the core functionality of my account, referring to Google Analytics in order to assess which areas had the highest traffic for our users.

I also put together a survey for stores based on digital features that had launched via email campaign, such as digital card, but had not been widely messaged to the customer base.

After getting this information, it was time to place these core needs into user stories and use these to map out a better structure for my account. As we were in an ideation phase, this was in the form of blueprints and low resolution wireframes.

As a team we took this across to relevant stakeholders within the business for approval.

In Bin Weevils, players could use in-game currency to purchase items to customise their experience. Some of the most popular items were furniture and decorations for a player's "Nest" which they could decorate and invite other players to.

I designed the storefront to make looking for and searching for items a fun and engaging experience. As well as including very recognisable visual filters for users to quickly find what they wanted, I also designed a 'bundles' feature for creative combinations of items to be rotated in regularly. I also designed a section of the store as a 'celebrity hang out room', where players could see how one of the NPC cast had decorated their room for inspiration, and had the chance to buy individual or whole sets of items from it.

Bin Pet's Paradise

I started off by mapping the core functionality of my account, referring to Google Analytics in order to assess which areas had the highest traffic for our users.

I also put together a survey for stores based on digital features that had launched via email campaign, such as digital card, but had not been widely messaged to the customer base.

As a team we took this across to relevant stakeholders within the business for approval.

Bin Pets were a wildly successful part of the game for players, allowing them to adopt a pet which could be fed and looked after. However functionality and mechanics around this popular feature were fairly bare bones. With the team, I designed a new area of the game map that was entirely Bin Pets focused. This included 'GymPet', an area where players could play mini-games to raise the stats of their pet and a 'Pet Style' section where players could customise their pet's appearance and take photos to put in their nests. Their was also a shop and space for new areas that were to include new story content surrounding the pets.

Creating Seasonal Events

I started off by mapping the core functionality of my account, referring to Google Analytics in order to assess which areas had the highest traffic for our users.

I also put together a survey for stores based on digital features that had launched via email campaign, such as digital card, but had not been widely messaged to the customer base.

As a team we took this across to relevant stakeholders within the business for approval.

A big part of Bin Weevils was the seasonal areas and game modes that were introduced throughout the year. I led design on the 2013 Halloween expansion which contained an ambitious new game mode, "Manic Manor" In which players hunted ghosts across various top down maps in order to earn keys and unlock more areas within a haunted mansion.

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