ChefVille

Summary: Build and manage the restaurant of your dreams while mastering the culinary world!

Time on Project: January 2013 - June 2013
Game Genre: Invest & Express Social Game
Company: Zynga Inc.
Position: Game Designer
Role(s): Feature Design, System Design, Cadence Design, Narrative Design, Expected Outcomes Projections, & Analysis of Feature Performance
Software Used:   Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint

Overview: ChefVille is an invest and express game in which players construct the restaurant of their dreams and master an ever expanding menu of recipes from around the world.  The game attracted as many as 7.2 million DAU at its peak.

My responsibilities on the team were split between design and product related tasks, with cadence design and analysis being my primary responsibilities.  On an average week I would take three features from one-page concept through approvals, including expected outcomes for both DAU and Revenue.  It was my responsibility to guarantee the success of these features through a thorough understanding of player behavior and by improving my designs with each new iteration.  The St. Patrick's Day event is a great example of this.  Taking a proven system within the game but altering it with a collection game I was able to reinvigorate player interest and spend in an existing feature, with minimal development cost. 

Outside of cadence design, I was also responsible for the design of new features such as The Countdown.  The purpose of this feature was to relieve the traditional viral-build-part pinch of Invest & Express games with something that would be more welcomed by players.  Instead of asking for build-parts players were tasked with asking their friends for ingredients that would unlock the recipes in their kitchen.  The benefit to this method is that instead of parts disappearing after the player has finished building an asset they get to use the acquired parts in the core loop of the game.  This is just one example of a feature I designed that was received exceedingly well by players, ranking as one of the players' most loved features.

Play ChefVille Here