CANDY CRUSH WORKSHOPS
While at King, I organised and facilitated workshops for the artists and UX designers within the Candy Crush team. Given their overwhelming popularity, I ran these sessions on multiple occasions.
When I transitioned to the Candy Crush Soda game, I identified a need to expand the workshop to encompass not just designers but also developers. Recognizing a knowledge gap among developers, I curated a tech-centric version of the presentation specifically for them, aiming to foster enhanced collaboration with the artists.
This initiative originally came out from a ‘Calidad’ (Spanish for ‘quality’) meeting —a platform where the team assembles to identify areas of enhancement. The aim was to optimize the Candy Crush game graphics resource usage, ensuring optimal performance across both low-end and high-end mobile devices.
I enthusiastically volunteered to drive this initiative and was soon joined by a senior Candy Crush artist. Together, we sourced real-world materials and created a set of invaluable tips, tricks, and best practices. To build anticipation for the workshop, I quickly created a promotional video trailer. It was a hit, sparking interest even beyond the target audience.
Given the popularity of the workshops and demand for more in-depth information, I began working on a follow up session. This sequel would dive deeper into technical nuances, including advanced topics such as shaders.
A SELECTION OF WORKSHOP SLIDES
Above you can see a partial selection of some of the things covered during the workshop. During a section of the workshop attendants received printed examples for them to practice their newly acquired skills, manually having to cut and combine pieces, a fun way try out what they learned and ask questions.
— PROJECT NAME
The Mystery Machine
— KEY ELEMENTS
Design Sprint
Ideation
User Interviews
Prototyping
One of the features I worked on at King was for the Candy Crush Soda game, a feature we internally called the Mystery Machine.
For this feature we did a one week Design Sprint based on some rough requirements from the team producer.
After the designs sprint we split up into three teams and created several interactive prototypes. I introduced the team to the Marvel app showing how we could quickly prototype and usability test ideas on a mobile phone. This was an app that I had previously used when helping create some concepts at another company.
I helped lead interviews for a selection of people to test and see what parts of the game feature they would understand and what was confusing. The interview was done in a separate room with the rest of the team watching over a video feed from a different room taking notes.
After discussing the results we iterated over the different designs until narrowing it down to a few, of which we did some online play cloud tests. After analyzing the results we narrowed it down to one version that was A/B tested in the game.
All game features developed at King are heavily data driven, everything is A/B tested and work is closely done with data scientist.
ADS DESIGN STUDIO
These slides offer a glimpse into the ADs Design Studio workshop I led. I aimed for an engaging presentation with captivating slides, sprinkling in moments of humor to maintain team interest. We took a brief pause, promoting movement to help attendees re-center their attention.
— PROJECT NAME
Ads Design Studio
— ROLE
Facilitator and Educator
Ideation
Hypothesis Brain storm
SWOT Analysis
I was invited to lead an Ads design studio focused on innovative monetization strategies for mobile Ads.
The workshop gathered three teams: two from London, encompassing stakeholders & ADs tech, and one from Stockholm, driving the A/B-test’s development and in-game artwork.
Aware of the session’s four-hour duration, I prioritized a dynamic approach, blending various methods and inserting short breaks to refresh the mind.
The workshop garnered significant praise, with many participants reaching out to express their gratitude post-session.
SAMIR BELARBI – Art Director Candy Crush
“Roberto was a key driver in raising the awareness among artists, UI and UX designers around technical optimization of art – doing both personal mentoring and workshops for the entire art team. During the work he showed great pedagogical skills and an ability to adapt the information to the target audience.
With the support from Roberto our artists substantially grew their tech skills, something that has allowed the team to deliver better and more optimized art to our 40 million unique weekly users.”
I’ve had the privilege of consulting for King on three separate occasions, spanning several years. During this time, I’ve collaborated with many talented professionals, many of whom I now count as close friends. It’s been an invaluable learning experience and a joy to contribute to one of the most iconic games in computer history.