Total Battle

Marketing Inside an App

When I joined the Scorewarrior team, their main product Total Battle, a 4x strategy mobile game, lacked a centralized lore foundation. Storytelling was fragmented across external media, leaving a void in the actual user experience. I stepped in to architect the beginnings of a Lore Bible and design a narrative framework that integrated story directly into direct marketing.

CREATING EMOTIONAL LOYALTY

To bridge the gap between a high-fantasy setting and modern mobile engagement, I co-designed Duncan the Archmage with the Art Director.

The Narrative Device: Duncan serves as a “transdimensional” guide—the only character aware of the player’s reality (Social Media, YouTube).
The Goal: This whimsical, high-intelligence character transformed cold technical “push notifications” into narrative interactions, significantly increasing email open rates and in-game dialogue engagement.
Professional Growth: During this period, I refined my character-building techniques under Adam Miller (Lead Writer, Marvel’s Spider-Man) through the ELVTR Video Game Writing program.

Living Lore: Character-Driven Seasonal Arcs

I shifted the narrative focus from abstract events to Character Archetypes, writing episodic content for the YouTube animated series and seasonal in-game adventures:

Captain Aydae (The Tragedy Path): A fierce huntress forced to combat the necromantic resurrection of her husband—exploring themes of grief and duty.
Captain Bernard (The Mentor Path): A grizzled crossbowman conducting huntsman trials, shifting the player’s perspective from “commander” to “mentor.”
Captain Ingrid (The Alliance Path): Utilizing cross-cultural world-building by pairing a beast-master with the Shogun Yamato to hunt an elusive Kitsune.
These stories increased our email open rate from 20% to 60% among 2.5 million subscribed players and generated similar log in boosts to the game. I wanted to sell to players without shouting “BUY THIS!” at them. I visually designed these documents using Canva with a combination of Photoshop and wrote the content myself.

Quantifiable Impact & Player Sentiment

Narrative is a powerful retention tool. My lore-driven approach yielded measurable success:

Player Sentiment: In a survey of 10,000 active veteran players, 73.8% reported increased motivation to play due to the new narrative content. And over 66% of 220,000 subscribed active veteran players opened and read the lore emails I wrote causing them to spend more time in the game.

@МарусяЧурай-ь4з: I love your stories so much!!! Sometimes I wish there was a whole book of fairy tales!! Thank you, please do more!
@karinasierra1250: Today I even imagined a great movie with these amazing stories… As always, it’s a pleasure to be part of the community.
@laprincesschappell4670: Story time!! I love how everything and everyone ties together. Makes the game more interesting and more intimate. Also, very informative.

Newsletters that feel real

With the newsletters I wrote, I kept it in the tone of one of the characters in the game. It was as if they received a letter from inside the game world. This kept the connection between the player and product. Even when outside the game, they were in it.

I used advanced HTML/CSS coding, graphic design, and copywriting to build entire newsletters inside our Braze CRM. Not a single other team needed to share their resources with me. I minimized pressure on teams by coordinating these projects myself.

I divided email into two categories:

Announcements using big visuals like posters (imagine cinema movie releases)
Sales emails to get players to premium packages in the game ($49,99 – $99,99 – $149,99)

Project: Reactivating Inactive Customers

In the example below is the outline of my omnichannel campaign to get inactive customers back into the game. Since we lost them, the only way to reach them was through email. So, I began with setting up a funnel.

It begins with an email and a mini-survey of four large buttons asking about their reason for leaving.
Based on their choice, they are put into a sequence that tries to alleviate their negative experience (No time, Too expensive, etc.)
If they still do not respond, but have the game installed on their phone, they receive push notifications to create a sense of urgency.
Finally, if they log in, they are immediately greeted by a character from the game talking to them personally to cement the emotional bond.

The result?

Out of a cohort of 100.000 customers, more than 21% came back to play the game again and more than 10% engaged in purchases bringing back more than 2 million USD into the game.