Game Design Best Practice

To improve the performance of your game, you may consider the following best UI/UX practices when tailoring your game to CelerX eSports platform.

Game Mechanics to Avoid

When designing your game, keep away from the following game mechanics when designing or tailoring your game to CelerX eSports platform.

• Random outcomes. There should be no elements of chances that affect the match result. However, it does not mean the game itself cannot involve any randomness (e.g., the generation of bubbles or card decks). As long as both players see the same sequence of randomness, it is all good.
• Guess at hidden information. For example, Minesweeper or Battleships are typical games that involve guessing at hidden information, which is not allowed in our platform.

Splash Screen

It is recommended to add a well-designed splash screen to your game, such as your studio’s animated logo. A good splash screen will help improve the retention rate of your game.

Landing Page

This is the first page the user will see after opening your game. It is recommended to include the following info in this landing page:

• An attractive game art. This could be as simple as a game promotion image, but a well-designed animation with sound effects is recommended as it can significantly boost the retention rate of your game. The game art should obviously show the name of your game. It is also preferred for the game art to include common elements to real-money games (such as dollars, coins and gems)
• An obvious “Play Now” button. After clicking the button, your game should launch CelerX SDK. Moreover, to improve new user conversion rate, the “Play Now” may be animated to guide a new user to click.
• Cross-promotion to your other games. If needed, you may consider adding cross promotion buttons to your other games on the landing page.

Game Tutorials

For first-time users, a game tutorial is needed. It is recommended that the game tutorials should be no more than 4 pages and focus on demonstrating the game goals, controls, power-ups and score strategy tips, as illustrated below.

If capacity allows, fancy interactive game tutorials may also be a good option.

Game Duration

The setup of game duration depends on the nature of your game. Setting a long duration may enrich the gameplay experience but slows down the competition pace, thus negatively affecting the revenue. Setting a short duration is good at incentivizing players to play more matches and increasing revenue but may negatively impact the gameplay experience and result in user drop quickly. The common game duration ranges from 2 to 4 minutes.

Game Main Screen

During gameplay, the following elements should be clearly displayed on screen:

• Timer
• Score
• Menu

Also it is advised to leave some safe margin on the top to make sure that no important info is hidden on devices with a notch (such as iPhone X).

Game Menu

It is strongly recommended to have a game menu which includes the following contents:

• A button for users to quit game and submit score early
• A button for users to resume the game
• A button to open the game tutorials
• Other game options such as a toggle for game music

Remember to hide the gameplay when opening the game menu to prevent some players from unfairly taking advantage of your game pause. You may also consider limiting the number of free pauses. For example, the timer may not stop after 3rd game pauses or extra penalty will be incurred after 3rd game pauses.

Score Summary

When the game ends or the player submits the score in the middle of the game, it is recommended that a score summary page is displayed. This page should clearly communicate the final score and how the score is calculated.

Game Music and Sound

It is recommended that game music and sounds be played only when the gameplay begins. Game music and sound should be exciting and relatively fast-paced to encourage players to play more matches. When the game nearly ends, you may consider switching to an even faster-paced music to escalate the excitement.