Umut Onel

Supported core game and level design on That’s My Seat, focusing on difficulty balancing, puzzle clarity, and building a more scalable level design system to improve content quality and production speed.

Mr. Pain is a highly profitable, successful game which we succeed to release at the end of 2022. As the team lead and game designer on this successful game, I was responsible for overseeing the development process from start to finish, including the creation of the game concept and design, as well as its eventual release. I also played a key role in the live operations of the game, continually analyzing player feedback and data to identify opportunities for improvement and implementing updates and new features.

I joined during the scaling phase and supported ongoing game design improvements. I analyzed player data and level funnel performance, identified progression issues, and helped stabilize the difficulty flow. I designed hybridization elements layered onto the core gameplay to support the hybrid casual direction and supported the designers responsible for maintaining the live game.

Trade Island was developed with the intention of exploring the growing genre of arcade idle games. The goal was to create a high-quality, engaging game that would keep players coming back for more. During the development process, we knew that Trade Island would require more time and resources than a typical hyper-casual game. However, we felt that the investment would be worth it if we could create a game that would stand out in a crowded market. As a result, we focused on creating an immersive experience with detailed graphics and engaging gameplay. Although Trade Island was well-received by players and performed well in terms of in-game KPIs, we faced challenges in terms of marketability. I consider the project to have been a beneficial learning opportunity, and I take pride in my contributions as both a team leader and a game designer.

Mix and Drink is a game that you role play as a “Juicetender”, serve the drinks, and do lots of different things in several particular mini-games. It includes more than 10 different mini-games, each has separate mechanics. As the head of studio, I was involved in the project from the start of the ideation and prototyping period. I worked with the marketing team and the development team closely in order to achieve the optimum LTV - CPI ratio. In the end, we succeed to increase the LTV and decrease the CPI, and managed to reach “top free #1 in the US on Apple Appstore”. The game was a huge success, downloaded more than 1million in its first week, and stayed at the top #10 for a couple of weeks.

Paint Puzzle is a game which I've designed while I was working at Popcore. All the prototype development process was done by 1 developer and 1 game designer. After the test and collected the data, we knew that the game will be successful. After the first test, 1 artist and 2 level designers involved in the project and we improved the gameplay, levels and art. We were able to scale the game on the iOS top charts in the US. The game stayed on the top charts for a couple of weeks.

Playtime is an app that you can play a bunch of addictive Popcore games. In Playtime, we represent lots of high retention and beloved games which couldn’t pass the CPI tests. In this way, we could use our CPI-wise failed but high quality games in one app to achieve user stickiness. Also, in this way, we could make our failed games profitable instead of killing them. In Playtime, there are more than 15 games that I’ve designed while I was at Popcore.

Newton - Gravity Puzzle was an Apple exclusive game that has pay to play monetization model. It was featured on Apple Appstore worldwide on its first week. It is downloaded more than 100k without any marketing costs. Newton won the Cristal Pixel 2017 - Best Mobile Game Award (The biggest Turkish national game award), and it was the finalist of Indie Prize 2017 - Kiev. We’ve developed Newton by 2 people and I was the game designer, level designer and the artist.

blok is an also Apple-exclusive puzzle game which was featured on the Apple Appstore worldwide. I’ve designed the whole gameplay, levels and interesting achievements.