Castle Multiplayer & Chat

I led design to enable multiplayer experiences in Castle, and contributed to frontend engineering working with three engineers. This work touched many aspects of the play and creation experience.

Rather than competing with Roblox and Fortnite on real-time hangouts, we focused on enabling people to create turn-based games like Scrabble and chess, and leaderboard competitions like Wordle and Flappy Bird.

Multiplayer Creation

Multiplayer game creation is typically very complex to program, I designed a system that simplified the process.

To enable multiplayer, I designed a simple switch in the IDE: [Local] for single-player games and [Shared] for multiplayer games.

Multiplayer creation

For players seeking to build leaderboard games, I distilled the program down to a single variable script [ex. $score] that could be built into a game's logic in order to save a score on the leaderboard.

Leaderboard creation

Here's a video that explains how to write logic in the Castle IDE and set up a leaderboard.

Unmute video or watch on YouTube

Multiplayer Sharing & Discovery

Previously on Castle, games were exclusively discovered and published through the feed. I designed multiplayer with chats, also known as Parties, as the foundational mechanism for sharing, so that players can initiate games with their friends or see what their friends are playing.

Outcomes

Since launching multiplayer, player retention increased 52%, with corresponding growth in games shared and new players joining the platform. We learned that people who participate in chat are even more retentive than creators.

About Osebo

Osebo is a Product Designer that writes code. He currently works on Castle, a mobile IDE and social network. Previously, he was a Product Design Lead on Oculus' Horizon Worlds, Nike's .SWOOSH, and a Product Designer at Tumblr. He also built software and hardware for independent radio at Evenings.fm.

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