INDUSTRY
COMPANY
ROLE
TIMELINE
A 5-minute game to turn pre-show wait time into a shared, high-energy experience. Players make moves on their phones and watch the action unfold on the Sphere’s giant screen. Designed for 10,000+ participants, it had to be fast, intuitive, and accessible to all.
INSIGHT
It started with a simple observation: before a show or concert, the wait felt endless for many audience members. We noticed people were already glued to their phones—often playing games to pass the time. That got us thinking:
DESIGN OPPORTUNITY
Interactive and Memorable
What if idle time became something engaging, interactive, and memorable?
Fast & Fun
How do we design a 5-minute experience with quick cycles of delight?
Easy to Understand
How do we make it accessible to 10,000 players, regardless of their background?
THE CONCEPT
Megapachinko is a large-scale pachinko game where players bet on an emoji. Their chosen emoji drops through the board, bouncing off hazards along the way. Surviving emojis earn points, which can be redeemed for concession credits at the Sphere.
Players make their selections on their phones, the outcome plays out in real time on the Sphere’s massive immersive screen—transforming individual inputs into a collective, high-energy visual spectacle.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
Designing for Sphere meant solving five key challenges—from split attention to player comfort—that shaped every UX decision.
Cognitive Load
How do we guide attention without overwhelming players?
Simplified Onboarding
How do we onboard players quickly and effectively?
Player Agency
How do we give 20,000 people a sense of control?
Player Discomfort
How do we combat cyber sickness and minimize arm fatigue?
Socialization
How do we break the silence between strangers?
ATTENTION FLOW
When players split attention between two screens, chaos follows — missed moments, confused glances, and dropped engagement. My biggest challenge? Guiding focus clearly.
So I treated attention like a ping-pong ball—choreographing clear, rhythmic shifts between input and payoff.
The key was guiding focus to one side at a time, never both.
WIREFRAMES
Early wireframes helped us answer two critical questions:
What needs to stay visible at all times?
What updates dynamically as the game progresses?
Buttons were anchored in thumb zones for one-handed use (drink in the other, naturally).
The goal: speed, clarity, and comfort.
PROTOTYPE
Once the UX flow tested well, I brought it to life with high-fidelity UI—balancing playfulness with legibility for large-scale visibility.
USER TESTING
We began with 20–40 person playtests, then scaled to 200-player venue tests to validate attention flow and usability.
I led end-to-end: recruiting, test design, data collection, and insight delivery.
92%
of players felt clear about when to look down vs. look up
82%
of players didn’t feel overwhelmed by the information.
76%
of players said the game guided them effectively through the first round.
IMPACT
The 5-minute interactive game we designed for Sphere in Vegas had a significant impact on audience engagement and business metrics:
26%
increase in ticket sales for Postcards from Earth
72%
of surveyed players said it made the wait time feel shorter
32%
increase in positive mentions about the Sphere experience on social media
Here’s what some audience members had to say: