A Web3 Game Launcher

Why did we build this?

In the gaming industry, indie creators struggle to reach niche audiences while traditional gamers face limitations in owning and monetising game assets.

Furthermore, average players find it challenging to monetise their gaming hours beyond major tournament winnings.

To create a game launcher for game publishers as well as a platform for gamers made by gamers. To bring a better gaming experience favouring users and boosting the creators economy.

Research & Interviews

The initial research included studying other game launchers platforms and the main requirements and functionalities that the platform would include. It also required understanding how a gaming NFT assets market could work and how we would bind together users wallet with the platform so they would be able to use their earnings or make in app purchases with their bitcoins.

User Stories & Flows

The company had already a pool of users and stakeholders from other products they had developed, specifically games developed by the company. Users were easy to reach through different Discord channels of projects where the company had been involved. We tried to identify common traits between those users to generate ideas for personas.

IA & Wireframing

The general structure and IA of the app followed some general conventions for game launchers, as we wanted to take advantage of the already built mental models gamers have.

First sketches were built already in digital. We established online sessions in Figma with the Product Owner and Chief Marketing officer as well as CEO, translating as a team info architecture into screens.

HD Prototyping

The HI-FI prototype was built with its main theme being a dark mode, a modern gaming aesthetic and a colour palette derived from the already diverse colour options in the Brand's logo.

Outcomes

The project was a success among the Web3 Gaming scene and also a pioneer in Lightning Network implementation. Due to this, the company won the award of Best Bitcoin implementation in the Bitcoin Miami Conference 2021.

I left the company before launch and luckily they had an awesome Dev Team included Dani Estevez, an awesome Frontend who managed to implement big part of the UI while I was there and later led the way to finish the job.

Branding

I was asked to think of a rebrand of the app's original logo. At first I refactored the logo, simplifying the forms. Afterwards, it seemed to me that it could be improved by some changes without a need for a complete rebranding. In that direction, I simplified the forms, adjusted a bit the colour palettes and decided to go for a standing bottle, to give a sense of stability, while keeping the movement with the liquid inside of the bottle.

User Interface

We wanted to take advantage of the most common patterns and mental models gamers already have. In that sense, our product has a lot in common with industry standards such as Steam and Epic Games. The biggest challenge was to implement in the design all the bitcoin rewards, NFTs and other blockchain functionalities.

Palette

We decided to go for a dark mode as main theme for the app, and to take advantage of the logo's vibrant colours. We built a palette consisting of the following colours categories: main, accent1, accent2, greys, danger, pass(green), warning(orange), danger(red). We had 10 shades for each colour anticipating the freedom of use for developers and the possible styling libraries that would be used by them.