Product: Prodigy Game
Platform: Desktop Browser Game, Mobile
Audience: Children aged 7–12
Scope: Starlight Fest, Pumpkin Fest, Winter Fest, Moonlight Fest
Additional responsibility: Technical UI assembly in Prodigy’s internal editor

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Overview

Prodigy’s seasonal Festivals are limited-time LiveOps experiences built around themed progression, quests, and rewards.

When I joined the team as a UX designer, the Festival feature had recently transitioned from a simple reward-based structure to a quest-driven system with an alternate progression path. These features were designed and shipped on short LiveOps timelines, requiring rapid iteration and minimal disruption to existing systems. Alongside UX design, I was responsible for assembling and implementing the UI in Prodigy’s internal editor.

Across Starlight Fest, Pumpkin Fest, Winter Fest, and Moonlight Fest, each release iterated on the same underlying system to improve clarity, engagement, and scalability for younger players.

 

Early Observations

As festival scope and complexity increased, we consistently observed:

• Low festival engagement

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• Confusion around story and progression

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• Players missing when rewards were ready to collect

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• High cognitive load caused by large quest lists and parallel states

This framed the core UX challenge: scaling LiveOps content without overwhelming a young audience.

 

Phase 1 — Starlight Fest

What we observed

UX research during the live Starlight Fest showed that younger players struggled with chunked progression. Multiple visible tasks made it difficult to understand story flow or decide what to do next. Quest names used as navigation links were often ignored.

What we changed

• Shifted story progression to a linear model
   

• Displayed one task at a time
   

• Removed quest names as unlock links
   

• Used visual state changes to communicate progression
   

This reduced cognitive load and reinforced clear cause-and-effect learning.

 

Phase 2 — Pumpkin Fest (Experiment)

Pumpkin Fest explored narrative-driven motivation as a primary engagement lever.

I designed the festival story around a ghost with a stomach ache from eating too much candy, framing candy corn collection as a way to help the character and advance the story. While players could battle Hollow Jack repeatedly, story progression advanced collectively through candy corn contribution rather than individual boss completion.

Due to short LiveOps timelines, this was treated as an exploratory experiment rather than a formal A/B test.

What we observed

• Some players were highly motivated by the clear narrative goal

 

• Boss anticipation created engagement and social sharing

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• Younger players responded well when story stakes were concrete and playful

This suggested that story can function as a meaningful reward when tied to a clear outcome.

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Feedback & Discoverability

We also observed that players often missed when progress or rewards were ready to collect.

To address this, we incrementally tested:

• Toast notifications

• A green “collect” badge

• Animated feedback on the Festival HUD button
   

These changes improved visibility of system status and increased festival engagement.

 

Phase 3 — Winter Fest (Experiment)

Winter Fest introduced a daily return mechanic centered around feeding a Wyrm. The quest structure remained similar to Starlight Fest, but progression became time-based rather than spatial.

What we changed

Countdown states such as:

• “Unlocks in 1 / 2 / 3 days”

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were simplified to:

• “Come back tomorrow”

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• “Coming soon”

This reduced numeric processing and improved comprehension.

We also expanded guided attention cues, including guided hands pointing to the Boss statue when the daily Boss Battle was available. Winter Fest additionally tested HUD redirection to Lamplight combined with an improved confirmation modal.

Result: a 30% increase in active festival participation over one month.

 

Phase 4 — Moonlight Fest

Moonlight Fest consolidated learnings from previous festivals into a more scalable UX approach.

Festival Guidance System

I proposed and designed a Festival Guidance System that:

• Surfaced available festival actions in Lamplight
   

• Used guided hands and visual emphasis to help onboard players into the festival flow
   

• Supported incremental introduction of new festival features
   

Moonlight Fest also introduced the Moon Gate, a member-exclusive feature that provided a clear visual anchor, helping players recognize festival-specific content and reinforcing membership value.

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FTUE & UXR Learnings

Moonlight Fest added a lightweight FTUE integrated with the festival narrative, followed by a linear sequence encouraging players to immediately claim rewards themselves.

UX research showed that:

• Children often ignored long-term timers and responded better to immediate feedback

• Large quest lists led to disengagement, especially for younger players
   

Moonlight reinforced:

• Fewer visible quests at a time

• Stronger feedback animations

• Sequential task presentation to guide players step by step
   

Member-exclusive quests and the Moon Gate were integrated into this structure, making premium content more visible within the progression flow.

 

Key Takeaways

• Linear progression improves comprehension for younger players

• Discoverability and feedback must be actively designed

• Narrative can motivate engagement when tied to clear goals

• Reducing visible choices helps prevent disengagement

• LiveOps UX improves through cumulative iteration
   

Moonlight Fest represents the most refined iteration of the Festival system and established a clearer foundation for future events.