Double Down

My Process

As Product Owner on Double Down, my biggest challenge has been balancing the game’s core pillars of fast-paced action and gambling. While it’s not hard to make either mechanic engaging on its own, the challenge is bringing the two together in a way that allows and encourages players to smoothly transition back and forth between fighting and gambling.

To ensure the game’s gambling mechanics met this challenge, I developed a heuristic that could be used to help keep any proposed mechanics in line: Each mechanic should be either “gamble in, combat out” or “combat in, gamble out.”

A “gamble in, combat out” mechanic is one where the quality of the payout (and if a payout is received at all) is determined by luck, as expected of gambling, but the payout helps the player interact with combat mechanics more. For example, the game’s first level has several slot machines scattered throughout the map, which the player can spin for the chance to earn a random pickup that will help them fight enemies more, such as healing or a damage multiplier.

On the other hand, a “combat in, gamble out” mechanic is one where the quality of the payout is determined by combat skill, but, as expected of gambling, the payout lets the player gamble more. The Ante mechanic uses this system, where the player can spend chips (the game’s currency) at any time to “ante” them, giving the player a chance to empty the pot and win a payout of twice what they put in any time they defeat an enemy, but risk losing all the anted chips if they ever take damage.