Systems, economy
and live ops for
idle RPGs.

Context

A pirate-themed idle AFK RPG built for the Vietnamese mobile market. I joined as product owner of the title: one person accountable for what ships, when it ships and whether the numbers underneath it hold together.

Tasks I hold

• ProductOwn the roadmap and feature backlog; run the sprint across art, engineering and QA; call the release.
• CollectionHero collection and formation systems — role, faction and tactic synergies that make a lineup a decision rather than a power sort.
• ProgressionProgression tracks and power curves across the whole roster.
• ModesDesign and documentation for the six live modes below, including entry costs and reward tables.
• EconomySummon banners, resource sinks, idle and offline rewards, free-to-play balance.
• Live opsWeekly discovery and lucky events, 7-day quest chains, limited summon banners.
• SharedUX wireframes with the art team; build verification with QA.

Task log

• Event mechanics and config — mechanic docs then the live config for the weekly discovery, lucky-event and quest-chain calendar.
• New hero pipeline — docs and setup for each new hero: role, faction, stats, skill kit, banner placement.
• PvP — specced and shipped the 1v1 Arena and the 15v15 cross-server war.
• IAP packs and fixes — built out the pack line-up at different price points; bug pass on every build.
• Economy rebalance — re-tuned faucets, sinks and prices against live behaviour.
• New game modes — mechanic docs and tuning for each mode added after launch.

Live on store

The design problem

An idle game pays the player while they are away, so the sinks have to be honest — otherwise the currency piles up, the summon banner stops mattering and progression flattens. Six modes exist partly to give that income somewhere to go, each with a different entry cost and a different reason to build a second lineup.

Context

Imba Games' flagship idle RPG, crossing idle progression with auto-battler combat. I was responsible for the main production and the credited author of the design set — the person the rest of the team read to know what the game was.

Tasks I held

• ProductionRan the main production line; tested and built the game versions that went out.
• EconomySet up the economy and balanced it across a 70+ hero roster plus gear and skins.
• ModesRewrote and improved the game-mode design documents.
• ContentWrote the specs for biweekly content drops — the cadence the live game ran on.
• SharedMonetization tuning with the publishing side.

Task log

• Event mechanics and config — mechanic docs and the config behind the biweekly content cadence.
• New hero pipeline — docs and setup for each addition to the 70+ roster, kept on one growth formula.
• PvP — arena and ranked features, from match rules to reward tiers.
• IAP packs and fixes — pack line-up across price points; bug fixes and version builds.
• Economy rebalance — repeated re-tuning of the economy across heroes, gear and skins.
• New game modes — mechanic docs and mode design for post-launch content.

Why balancing 70+ heroes is the hard part

A roster that size is not seventy balance problems, it is one: every hero has to be worth pulling without any hero being mandatory. Balancing there means tuning against the modes — a hero that is mediocre in Campaign has to have a tower, an arena or a synergy where it is the answer.

Outcome

Context

A co-production between CryptoViet Labs and Imba Games: an idle-RPG and auto-chess hybrid where the heroes are NFTs on Binance Smart Chain. The brief had two economies to satisfy at once — the in-game one and the token one — and they pull in opposite directions.

Tasks I held

• EconomyDesigned the game economy for the idle-RPG × auto-chess hybrid, with NFT heroes, fusion and burn mechanics.
• SupplyFusion and burn as the supply control: hero NFTs leave circulation when players push for higher tiers.
• TokenBuilt the tokenomics for the HE token and the IDO.
• PitchWrote the pitch deck and whitepaper the raise was run on.
• SharedCore systems with the partner studio's design team.

Task log

• Event mechanics and config — mechanic docs and event configuration alongside the NFT layer.
• New hero pipeline — docs and setup for new heroes as tiered NFT assets.
• PvP — the auto-chess versus layer: match rules, ranking and rewards.
• IAP packs and fixes — in-app pack line-up beside the on-chain economy; bug fixes across builds.
• Economy rebalance — re-tuned the in-game economy against token emission and burn.
• New game modes — mechanic docs for modes added after the raise.

Outcome

Backers included DAO Maker, Icetea Labs, X21 Digital, Magnus Capital

Title delisted since; the raise, token and press record remain public

The token structure I wrote

One billion HE created at genesis for the October 2021 IDO, with only 8% circulating on day one and everything else on a vesting schedule — the supply discipline that stops a play-to-earn economy from eating itself in week two.