Designing a socially immersive sports gaming experience

iOS, Android

Research, UX/UI Design, Interaction Design

Anglefire approached us to revitalize an existing experience they had designed that wasn’t ready for market. It lacked a strong brand that resonated with their users, refined interactions, and needed help with stickiness. I set out to optimize and give new life to this promising product.

During our discovery phase, there were several key elements to consider that we explored through secondary research and a competitive analysis. It was important to gain a deep understanding of the products space in order to create a product that accurately reflected the world of sports and our users’ mental models. Next, it was crucial to analyze gamification best practices and interaction design to ensure that the application was intuitive and easy to use. Features like leaderboards, messaging, and sounds were heavily researched to understand what a fun and immersive experience for users could feel like.

We sought out to streamline all of this information into an familiar and competitive application that truly stands out in a crowded market.

Our team began by conducting UI explorations and tweaking the brand identity to appeal to a larger audience.

We utilized rapid prototyping to test out several key features, such as swiping interactions, a chat that pushed our game details up so users could socialize without leaving the page, and haptics, sounds, and animations to bring our game to life. The final product was both visually entertaining and highly functional, and the incorporation of these interactions made for an engaging and immersive experience for users.

Developing a dynamic application with real-time data integration

There are several complexities that needed to be considered in order to ensure that the final product was polished and ready for market. This included implementing a unique moneyline algorithm to display team odds and help users make better picking decisions. We have integrated with a 3rd party service to provide users with real-time and accurate information about matches and teams and be flexible to account for live changes to game statuses. Creating a dynamic schedule of slates for daily and weekly contests was also implemented to keep users engaged with constant gaming content to play.

By considering these complexities during the development phase, we created a lively experience for sports fans.

AngelFire Games has been a slam dunk since its MVP release. We’ve been hard at work refining the user experience and adding exciting new features to keep our users engaged.

Soon after launch we released Squares, the best digital gaming equivalent on the market to this popular betting game often played during the Super Bowl. The featured lobby is a crowd-pleaser, with over 3,000 new users joining in the first two weeks for a chance to win constant prizes. We’ve been enhancing user profiles and leaderboards to keep things fresh and exciting, and release new leagues often with plans for new games coming soon.

And to top it all off, AngelFire is available on both the App Store and Google Play Store, so everyone can join in on the fun.