Hi Highrisers!

Behind every feature and system in Highrise is a small but passionate group of builders. Today we put on our biggest hard hats and drop in on the Product team!

From top left to bottom right, we’re sitting down with EN_CW, elmd, flettir, and ruiriri to learn how they work, what inspires them, and what they dream of building next.

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First things first, please introduce yourselves and tell us how you got into game development!

EN_CW: Hi, I’m EN_CW, a Senior Product Designer here at Pocket Worlds. Like a lot of people in game development, I started out just playing games obsessively. I spent hours in the Warcraft 3 and StarCraft map editors, building stories I didn’t yet know how to code. In high school, I made my first real friends through games. Those friendships made me realize that connection is what drives my work today: creating experiences where people can meet and express themselves.

That’s why I was drawn to Highrise. I wanted to work on something that wasn’t just a game, but a social world where creativity and friendship coexist. I then studied graphic design in college, fell in love with UI/UX, and eventually found my way to Pocket Worlds. The rest is history.

elmd: Hey y’all I’m elmd, one of the Senior Product Designers here at Pocket Words! I’ve always dreamt about working on a game, never actually thought it would’ve happened! I’ve always been drawn to social games, especially the ones where you get to meet people all over the world and dress up. Before I even knew what UI/UX was, I was just constantly noticing things. I’d download apps just to see how they worked. That curiosity slowly turned into designing interfaces.

Somewhere along the way, it went from a hobby to my job. Now I get to design for millions of players – helping them express themselves and find their people. It still feels a bit surreal, but in the best way.

flettir: Hi, I’m flettir! I’m a Senior Data Scientist and Product Manager. I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and always had a tendency to try to understand all the nuances, tricks, and systems of whatever I was playing, so game development felt kind of inevitable.

I was always a numbers guy, and joined a gaming startup called Infinite Canvas as a data scientist, where I built and managed their data infrastructure and slowly transitioned to more and more of a product role, using data insights to directly inform product and feature development. Eventually I found my way to Pocket Worlds and have been here since!

ruiriri: Hey there, my name is ruiriri, a Product Manager here at Pocket Worlds! I got into game development in college, when I took a class making a 2D game. I’ve always been interested in product management because I feel like it’s where you get to talk to users (hey guys!) and make things happen!

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Someone in the Product team can mean many things. In your own words, what do you do on the team?

EN_CW: I like to think of my role as the bridge between vision and experience. The Product Team defines what we want to create and why, but it’s my job to help figure out how it should feel. My background in UI and UX design means I spend a lot of time prototyping, testing, and iterating. This means creating a version of a feature that feels real long before it’s coded.

Once we have a solid prototype, I work closely with engineers to make sure the final product matches the original intent. That means refining tiny details like buttons, animation speed, or visual hierarchy. These small things make a big emotional difference.

But my work doesn’t stop once a feature is live. I monitor how players use it, read feedback in Discord, and study behavior data to understand whether the feature is actually doing what we hoped it would. Then I help shape the next round of improvements.

It’s a cycle: vision → prototype → feedback → polish → launch → learn → repeat.

elmd: I make sure things make sense. Not just functionally, but emotionally. Product design, to me, is about shaping experiences that feel intuitive and meaningful. On any given day I might be sketching out a new flow, prototyping interactions, or rethinking why something doesn’t “feel like Highrise.” It’s half detective work, half storytelling. Players tell us how something feels off, and I dig into why. Then try to make it right without losing the charm that makes Highrise, Highrise.

flettir: I’m on both the Product and Data teams here, which puts me at the heart of the product → data → insights → iteration loop. I make sure that our features are impacting the game in the ways we want them to, and figure out where they’re falling short and how to improve them.

ruiriri: I make sure users are heard and improve Highrise for you guys as much as I can

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There are tons of different features in Highrise. What was your favorite feature you helped make and why?

EN_CW: The Avatar Plaza, which greets every new player when they join, is one of my proudest projects. Before it existed, the onboarding experience was… let’s just say minimalist. Players would enter a dark screen with two avatars and the Highrise logo. That was it.

We wanted to create something that captured the spirit of Highrise the moment you opened the app. So we built the Avatar Plaza: a bright, lively scene filled with animated avatars, glowing lights, and the world breathing around you. It was meant to say, “Welcome!”

It might seem like a small change, but first impressions matter. This is where new players first meet the world and imagine who they can become. The fact that it became the foundation for future onboarding updates, like the Avatar Height Slider, makes it one of my favorite features ever.

elmd: Definitely Looks! It’s been a wild journey. From the first version to the polish updates and all the feedback in between. Looks is special because it’s more than a feature. It’s self-expression made social.

Seeing how players mix outfits, experiment with styles, and inspire each other is the best part of my job. Every time I see a Looks post, I’m reminded of why I love designing for the community.

flettir: Probably flash events; we’ve now largely phased them out in favor of the Season Pass system, but they laid a lot of groundwork there. They were an interesting blend (from the product/creation side) of game design, reward structure and incentivization, data tracking and iteration, and client design to make sure they’re visible to players.

ruiriri: Only one so far, and that’s Season Pass! It’s super cool since it’s something that you guys have been asking for, and it felt great to make that happen! Also, it required a lot of teamwork between a lot of teams here on the staff side, which was amazing to be a part of!

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What’s a game you’ve played that you feel has ‘perfect’ design? What makes it so good?

EN_CW: My answer might surprise some people, but it’s Duolingo. It’s technically not a game in the traditional sense, but everything about its design feels like one. And that’s what makes it brilliant.

Duolingo is a masterclass in user motivation. It uses the psychology of gaming, streaks, rewards, cute characters, and humor, to make learning addictive in a healthy way. Every animation, sound, and color choice serves a purpose. You don’t just learn a new word, you feel like you achieved something.

It’s proof that game design doesn’t have to be limited to games. It can make any experience, even studying, fun, social, and meaningful.

And yes, my 1,300-day streak in Spanish is real.

elmd: I’d say Animal Crossing because it’s designed around comfort rather than challenge. The sound design, pacing, and interactions all encourage you to slow down and feel at home. It’s a game that doesn’t ask you to win. It just asks you to exist, and that’s surprisingly powerful.

flettir: Hades. Every ounce of it absolutely oozes flavor, style, and intentionality. It masterfully weaves together gameplay, story, progression, and aesthetics… I could go on and on, but honestly it’s just a must-play for almost anyone (especially if you’re into action-y games).

ruiriri: I really love Celeste! It’s a platforming game that gets progressively harder and harder, and it’s super challenging but also really fun and beautiful. TLDR: it’s a girl climbing her mountain. It’s so good because the game teaches you and increases your platforming capabilities without you even realizing.

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If you had an unlimited budget and all the time in the world, what is the one “dream feature” you would love to build for Highrise?

EN_CW: I’d completely rebuild player profiles. Highrise is a game about creativity and identity, but profiles, the one place meant to showcase who we are, don’t yet live up to that potential.

Imagine a profile that feels like a digital scrapbook. Your avatar front and center, surrounded by stickers, badges, and achievements that tell your story. Maybe you’ve won events, collected rare pets, or maintained a 200-day streak with a friend. You should be able to show that off.

Think of it like fridge magnets. Each one represents a memory, a milestone, or something that makes you unique. Highrise already celebrates creativity, but I want profiles to celebrate the person behind it. It’s something I think about a lot: how to make a player’s presence feel more personal, more memorable. That’s where identity really lives.

elmd: If I had unlimited time and budget, I’d love to add more small, shared interactions that make Highrise feel alive. Imagine being able to buy food and actually see your avatar eat it, or pass it to someone else. Or buying a flower for your friend in the same room and watching them receive it in real time.

These moments sound tiny, but they create a sense of presence and realness. It’s like you’re actually hanging out together, not just standing next to each other. It’s the small interactions that make a space feel warm, playful, and memorable.

flettir: I want to completely revamp the profile page**.** Not entirely sure how that would look, but I want to bring players more room for customization and more ways to show off their collections and their achievements. This is a fashion game where you can really only display one outfit at a time, and that feels like something we can do better on.

ruiriri: A huge shopping mall where you could shop for clothes, “get food” with friends, watch movies, and hang out!

How do you go from feature concept to completed feature?

EN_CW: Every feature starts with a problem we want to solve for players.

For example, when we began designing the Season Pass, we wanted to give players consistent goals, better free-to-play rewards, and a story-driven reason to log in every day. The process started with our leadership and data teams identifying gaps in player engagement and then discussing what kind of feature could fill that need.

From there, I worked on translating that abstract idea into something tangible: wireframes, prototypes, and interactive mockups that helped everyone visualize the experience. Once we had something playable, we ran internal playtests and later closed player playtests to gather early reactions.

What follows is a lot of iteration. Sometimes the visuals look great but the progression pacing feels off. Sometimes the UX is clean, but the emotional reward is missing. That’s where my job as a designer comes in - balancing logic with feeling.

After the design gets approved, I work hand-in-hand with engineers and artists to make sure every interaction, animation, and button behaves as intended. We test, tweak, polish, and test again.

But even when a feature launches, it’s not the end. We track feedback in Discord, analyze player behavior, and refine based on what we learn. A feature only feels “done” once players truly enjoy using it. And even then, it keeps evolving.

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Final Thoughts

Every new feature in Highrise, from Looks to Season Pass, starts with the question: “How can we make Highrise feel more like a community?”

Through design, data, and tons of collaboration, the Product team shapes how players express themselves and connect with each other.

Feel free to say hi to them whenever you see them on Highrise!