Wizard of Oz: Magic Match is a Match 3 game created by Zynga available on iOS and Android. It combines classic Match 3 elements with the Wizard of Oz brand to create a compelling gameplay experience. More information about the game can be found here.

My Role – Senior Game Designer

I began working on Wizard of Oz: Magic Match in May 2017 as a Design Intern, and after my internship ended in September 2017  I was hired as a Contract Designer. My work as a contractor continued until March 2018 when I was brought onto the team full time as an Associate Game Designer. After working for a year in that role I was promoted to Game Designer in March 2019, and in March 2021 I was promoted to my current role of Senior Game Designer.

As a Design Intern I created new levels for the game and critiqued the levels made by other designers. I would then incorporate the feedback from other designers into my levels. In addition, I designed new features for the game including hazards, reward systems, game modes, and map regions. My work as a contractor was a direct continuation of the work I had done as an intern, and my contributions to the project largely stayed the same.

When I was hired as an Associate Designer I became more involved with the live operations of our game and would regularly be tasked with redesigning live levels of the game that were under performing. I also took over Design’s responsibilities in our content release process, working closely with other departments to ensure new levels were released to our players each week.

A few months before my promotion to Game Designer I began designing a level editor meant to be used on multiple Match 3 games created by Zynga. While heading up the design of this tool I worked closely with the engineers creating it while also gathering feedback from other designers and incorporating it into the functionality of the tool.

I’ve done work creating new tutorials for the game, and collaborated with engineering as we updated our system. I then updated old tutorials that were no longer accurate to make use of the new features available. The tutorials I’ve created have involved new power ups, side content features, and hazards in ways that were not possible with the limitations of the old system.

As time went on I took on the task of managing the production of main progression levels for the game. This involved ensuring our rate of level creation has kept pace with our weekly content releases, and final approval of level submissions. It’s also included making sure new regions have been set up properly and overseeing Design’s content submissions for our monthly app update schedule. 

Shortly after being promoted to Senior Game Designer I handled creating new documentation and onboarding the new design team that would take over running the game. I ran multiple knowledge transfer meetings on key processes to the weekly functioning of the game, before having multiple designers shadow me and then take over those duties. I remained on the project longer than the rest of the Design team in a support capacity before rolling off the project in May 2021 to join the Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells team.