Archer Madness

Project Context

Archer Madness was a 3D archery game built for the Facebook Instant Games platform. It supported asynchronous gameplay between Facebook friends, Messenger integration and shareable moments designed around the platform's social loop.

Player retention was a major part of the product strategy. Facebook sharing, Messenger bot flows and other social prompts encouraged players to return. Many features were designed, implemented, tested and later changed or removed based on A/B testing.

I supported development during the later stages of the game's life, including implementation of A/B tests such as Facebook shareables. I also worked on simplifying the production and distribution of Facebook shareables through an in-house Figma plugin workflow. The team consisted of two developers, an artist and a producer.

The game has since been removed from Facebook Instant Games after changes to Facebook's social policies and the company no longer supporting development.

Platform-Driven Iteration

My work sat mostly around later-stage product iteration rather than first-pass game architecture. That meant adding and testing shareable content, improving the flow around social prompts and working with existing gameplay and rendering systems without destabilising the live project.

Because the project depended on Facebook SDK behaviour, analytics, ads and Messenger re-entry, small UI or sharing changes could affect retention data. The implementation needed to be easy to test, remove or adjust once A/B results came back.

Figma Plugin Integration

An in-house Figma plugin workflow simplified the creation and customisation of shareable content.

Instead of developers manually positioning text and visual elements such as player names, scores and friend information, designers could produce shareable layouts more directly. This reduced manual implementation work and made iteration on social content faster.

Facebook Instant Games SDK

The Facebook Instant Games SDK connected the game to Facebook and Messenger, enabling players to challenge friends and return through social flows.

Facebook's SDK exposed platform metrics such as session length and retention, which fed into later product decisions around player behaviour.

Ad Integration

Ad integration supported monetisation. Ads could be shown at selected moments such as between rounds or after completing a game.

Analytics informed ad placement and frequency so monetisation did not overwhelm the player experience.

Messenger Integration

Messenger integration supported challenge flows, updates, notifications and reward prompts. This made the game easier to share and helped drive re-engagement through Facebook's social surfaces.

Analytics And A/B Testing

Analytics tracking exposed player behaviour, including session length, retention and engagement.

A/B testing covered areas such as difficulty, tutorials, power-ups and social sharing mechanics. The results informed which features were kept, changed or removed, giving the team better data around retention and player experience.