Over the course of a year, our Maxis team of designers, engineers, artists, and producers designed and developed the Horse Ranch Expansion Pack to ship to over 70 million players worldwide. Our creative team added a new world, complex animals, competition, gameplay, skills, traits, furniture, outfits, and more to our life simulation video game DLC.
MY ROLE
UX Designer
Research & User Testing
User Flows & Design Writing
Wireframing & Prototyping
Hi-Fidelity Design & Implementation
UX DESIGN TEAM
Lea Jung, Trisha Wittenbrink, & Yili Lou
Our pack objective and most significant design challenge was adding unique animal species to The Sims 4. Unlike cats & dogs, horses can be ridden by the player, earn skills and accolades, and require special care. We needed to seamlessly integrate horses and mini animals into our game and teach our players how to navigate new gameplay, customization, riding, training, and care.
MY OWNED FEATURES
Horse Customization
Horse Riding
Horse Training & Obstacles
Buying, Adopting, & Selling Horses
Horse Breeding & Birth
Equestrian Skill
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Should horses be selectable and/or playable?
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How might we surface and solve new species' needs?
What activities and animals do players want on a ranch?
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How might we add horse training and competition?
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How might we design horse customization?
How might we design horse breeding & genetics?
Our multidisciplinary teams collaborated through every phase of pre-production and production to research, design, and deliver The Sims 4 Horse Ranch DLC. From brainstorms to feature writing, wireframes to implementation, and user testing to iteration, our studio poured thousands and thousands of hours into bringing these exciting new features to life.
We dove into old and new Sims features, competitors, and even visited the Pacifica Equestrian Ranch to uncover opportunities for our Ranch pack. In person, we met horses, barn animals, and consulted equestrian professionals to understand the equipment, tasks, and day to day life of a rancher.
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What stories might we tell around Ranch Life? We held dozens of workshops with players and developers, brainstorming everything from animals species, ranch activities, horse experiences, and more.
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Running playtest sessions early in production was crucial in order to inform our pack direction. We recruited, crafted, and facilitated storyboard sessions, detailing our new feature offerings and pack vision with players, in order to gauge player sentiment and improve our designs.
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Diving into the design phase, we spearheaded the UX direction of our features starting with user flows. Within a sandbox game as complex as The Sims 4, there are an infinite number of ways to play. Therefore, it was crucial to map our player personas and internal & cross pack features to identify the best opportunities, experiences, and potential player pitfalls.
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After mapping each feature, our UX team visualized the details of each new user flow through crafting hundreds of wireframes. Wires were a pillar of pack production, as our cross disciplinary teams referenced them throughout the entire production process to build our new game.
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Once the wireframes were complete, our team created 3 playable prototypes to test with players. We facilitated over a dozen 1 hour playtest sessions gathering feedback, opinions, and ideas on the current pack experience. We identified confusing pain points to fix and feature highlights to enhance.
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In the production phase, our UX design team created high fidelity wireframes and implemented all new interfaces, visuals, and icons into the game.
Our team of 3 designers identified, directed, and created over 600 new icons for this pack. In addition to user interfaces, our UX team is in charge of all icon creation and management for the dozens of icon styles within our game. For example, I created all the Horse Customization icons, including the examples below:
Playtesting GALORE! The last phase of pack production consisted of players and developers playtesting solo and in groups in order to identify issues and further polish the pack experience. In the iteration phase, our UX team runs UXR studies, synthesizes feedback, and creates action items to fix pain points and bolster existing features.
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I spearheaded the Horse Customization Experience, designing the navigation, categorization, icons, horse traits, and creating solutions for unique challenges that arrived when customizing a new animal in our life simulation game.
• How do we categorize all the horse gear, outfits, and accessories?
• Horses require equipment, how do we surface this to the player?
• How should breeds and genetics work with customization?
I owned the Horse Riding and Training experience, and designed solutions to seamlessly allow players to ride, navigate, train, and compete with their horses across worlds, towns, and lots.
• What skills should horses have? How many skills should horses have?
• How should horses level up their skills? Through obstacles, Sims, etc.?
• How do we surface horse training and care objects to players?
Within a large studio with hundreds of people, dozens of disciplines, budgets, and deadlines, prioritizing the most critical problems and highest value add solutions is essential. Compromise is critical in every phase of development.
COMMUNICATE EARLY & OFTEN
Ensuring that teams collaborate early and often in development not only prevents future roadblocks, but improves ideation and execution. Clear communication across disciplines paves the way for exceptional products.
TAKE INITIATIVE AND OWNERSHIP
The quality of final products often comes down to the initiative and execution of individuals. There are infinite opportunities to add ideas and value in a project of this scale, and putting in extra care is what makes our game special for players.
