CityVille Reboot (unreleased)

CityVille was one of the biggest social games ever made. It reached 100 million players within weeks of its 2010 Facebook launch (VentureBeat), and Guinness recorded it as the most popular social networking game. In 2018 Zynga publicly committed to rebuilding it for mobile from the ground up, to feel familiar but with new ways to play. My job was to define what a modern AAA CityVille should look like.

I directed visual development for the reboot. I set its look, managed the in-house and offshore artists who built it, and worked hands-on in Unity.

• Defined the look. I led visual development for a bright isometric city where every building, road, and district reads clearly at mobile scale.
  Add: early concepts, color keys, a building style sheet
• Built the pipeline. I set visual standards and production pipelines so the in-house and offshore teams could deliver consistent work.
  Add: one asset taken from concept to final in-game
• Worked hands-on. I created in-game assets in Unity for player research and marketing tests.
  Add: a marketing test or research build, if you can share it

Zynga announced the reboot publicly in 2018, and it stayed on the company’s 2019 game pipeline. It was never released.