News.

2022

What’s the bait?.

24 May 22
8 minutes

Fishing Clash is our flagship title, and we wouldn’t exaggerate to call ourselves a leader in the mobile fishing games area. Proof? By the end of 2021, our game was installed by more than 100 000 000 players worldwide! Our key to success? Our games’ constant development, delivering new content to players, and care for details.

Would you like to meet the team and learn how they work on our greatest hit? Let’s go!

A leader behind the team

Aleksandra Balinska, the team’s leader, joined us in 2019 as a Junior Live Ops Designer. She started out in Hunting Clash, gradually making her way up in game development: from the title’s release in 2020 to its 152nd place in the Google Play store. The experience she gained there helped bring her where she is now as Alex left the Hunting Clash project to take on leadership in Fishing Clash. In her private life, our colleague is a big fan of Pokémon Go. A TSG company legend says that we hired her because we never met anyone with a larger collection of these crazy creatures.

Several teams, one goal

First and foremost, as the mobile game may look from the outside as a small application, it is an advanced project, and to keep the game running and further developing, there is a team of 92 people behind it.

Ten teams work in 6 streams: Alfa, Spock, Live Services Development, Liveops, Content, and Fishing Clash China. Each of them takes care of the different aspects of the game, but they work together to craft the best players’ experience in the end.

Alfa Romeo

Team Alfa is Fishing Clash product stream that takes care of whatever demands programming, game design and UX skills. To name a few, it would be new functionalities, new game modes, and new systems.

To picture it with an example, Fishing Clash consists of a rod system in the game that players can interact with, e.g., by improving their rods. When, at some point, it occurred that many players had already reached the maximum in their rod enhancements, it became necessary to refresh the system. It meant creating a new UI, adding new functionalities resulting from players’ feedback, and changing the system to allow unlimited rods extensions.

What drives the Alfa team? First – players’ feedback, second competition, and third – data! Alfa team works closely with our  Business Intelligence department and bases many decisions on A/B test results.

– That is the funniest aspect of our work that A/B tests are often totally against our intuition. Sometimes the team is convinced that we created something great for the players, and they aren’t impressed at all. And sometimes, it is the other way around. That is why we don’t base our decisions on gut feelings but data – explains Wojciech Słoma, Product Manager.

Spock

Team Spock, as Eliza Chyży Product Manager, explains is taking care of the long-time experience in the game. What does it mean? Team Spock works on the so-called seasonality of the game, which is thematic changes according to actual seasons and events in the real world. 

Eliza Chyży, Producer at Spock

But they also work on new features for players, such as team competition, and help other teams, e.g., the Liveops team in improving functionalities such as battle pass or event segmentation. The Spock team also delivers UI and functionality rules to Content and Liveops teams, creating what players like the most – events.

Spock, Liveops, and Content teams closely work together and have regular meetings to exchange ideas, analyze outcomes and share their experience. 

The team consists of 15 people, and as Eliza states, they base on the creative exchange between game design and game development. 

Live Services Development 

Live Service Development is kind of a superhero team among Fishing Clash streams. Contrary to Alfa and Spock teams who work on more long-term projects, this team has shorter sprints and reacts whether there is an urgent situation to fix or the need to act quickly and support other streams, especially Liveops. So “live” is the crucial aspect of this team name because it was founded to address the game services’ smaller and diffused technical needs.

– We make sure that the teams have the right capabilities, tools, and features to provide the best experience to our players – explains Martin Sikora, Product Manager.

Live Service Development also supports the integration with external tools like the players’ support systems to constantly improve the experience of Fishing Clash.

Fishing Clash China 

The stream taking care of Fishing Clash China is unique among other teams within Fishing Clash, and it is because the Chinese version of our flagship game is different from the global one.

– First, it differs because of cultural background, and second, it needs to be in line with the regulations and laws of the Chinese market – explains Agnieszka Linek, Producer.

So Fishing Clash China has a slightly different art style than the global version of the game, it hosts its own events, and there are even special fish.

– While working on the product for a different market, we learn a lot about the Chinese culture – states Agnieszka Linek. – Because of pronunciation in Chinese, many aspects that are neutral in Western cultures gain second meanings, e.g., numbers. As 520 is pronounced like “I love you” on the 20th of May, the Chinese celebrate valentines, and we also adapt our content to these seasonal differences – explains the Producer.

In this product stream, we closely cooperate with our partner – NetEase, and we are very open to their suggestions and advice, especially when we want to introduce new content.

The team’s main focus is on liveops and creating new events for the Chinese players.

Read more about Fishing Clash China

Liveops

The Liveops team gathers 18 people of varied expertise and specialization who deliver to Fishing Clash players daily entertainment via game events. Thanks to them, players get something new every day. 

Although the team is diverse, everyone has high ownership. The largest group in this stream are (surprise, surprise) liveops designers – there are 6 of them on the team. Only one person less is among the testers.  

The other members of the team are UX writer, Economy Designer, and Community Manager. UX writer – Artur takes care of the game story, Bartek looks after FC Community and is a liaison between the team and the players, and Lukasz, the Economy designer, sets the balance, e.g., of rewards that players gain during gameplay. 

It is also worth mentioning that Liveops stream works closely with our support team, who delivers the players’ feedback.

Thanks to the efforts of liveops stream – players can collect items, compete in duels and challenges and cooperate within clans. They also prepare special offers.

What is best about this team? Dynamic environment, space to implement own ideas, and the possibility to implement them on the spot! In liveops, the verification of ideas also comes really fast – actually, they can see live if their event or feature performs!

Where do they get their inspiration from to have all these ideas? 

– Mostly in the shower – laughs Artur Meller Liveops Designer. – Ideas come to us while we are on the walk, while driving a car, more obviously while playing other games, but at some point, creativity becomes our habit – he adds.

However, it is not as easy as it looks. Before introducing anything new in the game, the team discusses it, considers possible risks, and plans technical implementation. Then with all the additional content, e.g., a liveops team adds a new event in the game’s structure, and at the end, the testers painstakingly check whether everything is okay and whether it is ready for the players.

Content team 

The FC Content Team consists of Game Designers and Artists who are responsible for conceptualizing the game and creating the art work for our Fishing clash Game, they create concept art to enable the visualization of different assets, and backgrounds. They also use their ability to create realistic 3D models, environments and more.

Having a strong style and mood and tying all the aspects together (design, art, story etc.) is what brings a game to life. We trust that these great visuals will keep our players immersed in the world we have created.

Would you like to learn more about Fishing Clash art? Watch the video: 

Ready to take on the challenge? Apply and meet the team.

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