Mash Dash!!™
DATES : 2017-2019
PLATFORMS: IOS, ANDROID,
OCULUS, NINTENDO SWITCH
ROLES: PRODUCER/LEAD DESIGNER
ABOUT THIS PROJECT:
Mash Dash!!™ is a mobile game released for iOS & Android, and is the freshman entry into the gaming scene for Gamma Interactive LLC (my company). It required extensive development and went through several phases of testing and iteration before it was released in the market.
From Prototype to Release
Defining a Style
As I developed the gameplay, I also was beginning to consider the style of the game. As I mentioned before, we wanted to show influences from Crossy Road, but also have our own identity. Voxel was our foundation, but decided to give our characters a little more ‘personality.’ Also, I decided our color palettes should be marshmallow and taffy themed, so you’ll notice a lot of pastels in our design language.
Rich Content Leads to Rentention
Making a Free-to-play game that is successful requires a large player base with a huge number of Daily Active Users. To achieve this, we strategized not only to advertise using a specialized marketing strategy, but a number of features within the application to keep users coming back. A combination of unlockable characters, items, In-App-Purchases, daily rewards, and a unique “Gacha” mechanic helped give our product significantly higher Day-1 and Day-7 retention than before we implemented some of said features.
Iteration, Testing, Iteration, Testing, etc
Mash Dash!! went through extensive testing and changes over the course of its development cycle. Beginning with closed, hand selected testers, then moving forward with larger, less familiar test groups (during Alpha state). When we moved to Beta, we distributed the game to the Philippines, Denmark, and New Zealand, as they are English speaking nations with similar spending habits to larger comparable nations. At E3 2018, we competed in “Big Indie Pitch,” our first foray into competitive play-testing. We didn’t win, but we got great insight into areas that we could improve on, primarily onboarding and laying out player objectives more clearly.
Bringing to Market
Nearing a market release, we decided to attempt to boost our marketing strategies by creating ancillary products, emojis, a soundtrack, and a digital comic strip. Of course we couldn’t do this alone, so we enlisted the help of some up-and-coming artists to assist us with these. One final hurdle that presented itself was trademarking. We applied for a trademark for Mash Mallow (the original title), but it turns out Mash Mallow had been trademarked by Mattel in late 2016!! In a quick pivot, we rebranded to Mash Dash!!, which we were granted to Trademark to.
The Final Product
Mash Dash!!™ has since launched on iOS & Android and is currently being ported to Oculus platforms and Nintendo Switch. It has had over 2,100 downloads on iOS and Android.
Soundtrack: CLICK HERE
Comic: CLICK HERE
Mash Dash!!™ for iOS: CLICK HERE
Mash Dash!!™ for Android: CLICK HERE
