My remit
As Lead Creative Director & Product Strategist at New Future Holdings, I connected concepts, gameplay framing, portfolio priorities and production alignment. Before dedicated project-management roles were in place, I also coordinated creative, programming and Vietnam-based teams, alongside hiring and developing the core creative team.
Hands-on execution and delegation
I created many of the initial concepts and personally executed substantial creative work. My creative director brought lead-level UI/UX expertise and led much of that execution; I retained creative review and approval. Artists also proposed directions for delegated projects, with coaching through concept selection and development.
The creative decision
The ALIZE brief began as a themed retelling. I developed an original world and cast, with narrative beats that could unfold through play. The product family made room for a flagship story, familiar formats and separate fictional worlds, each with a clear identity.
Shared foundations, distinct games
A lean team faced a first batch of four to six titles on a short schedule. We developed a unified UI/UX foundation and reusable engine elements, with my creative director leading UI/UX execution under my review. Each game still needed its own characters, scenery, framing and visual treatment. The decision was to reuse the production foundation while investing creative effort in the identity players would notice.
Dark Reels: an RPG journey inside a slot
I asked what a Diablo-inspired RPG experience could feel like inside a slot. The challenge was to make the math, gameplay and visuals work as one. With the team, we connected creature encounters to bonus spins, larger monsters to a progression toward the boss-stage free-spin feature, and defeated creatures to a bestiary with their own details. All progression and rewards still followed the slot’s probability-driven rules. Story, collection and nostalgia gave players a reason to look beyond the next spin. My contribution was concept, product and creative direction, alongside hands-on work with the team—bringing an ambitious experience into a buildable game.
The product family
The flagship connects story and cinematic progression; Originals carries earlier concepts and first-wave games; Multiverse provides room for other inspirations; LITE connects seven compact formats. Shared foundations could support several directions without making those worlds interchangeable.
From one coordinator to project pods
As the team grew across ALIZE and later Superbull, I organised small project pods and gave emerging leads responsibility for direct coordination with Vietnam-based artists and developers. That reduced reliance on me as the communication point for every project and gave team members opportunities to practise leadership. I stayed involved in creative direction, review and stakeholder approval.
Building leadership capacity
Through one-to-one coaching, shadowing and opportunities to lead presentations and team discussions, I helped develop broader leadership capability within the creative team. Over roughly three years, I prepared a successor to take over creative direction after my departure.
What the team delivered
Across the three-year ALIZE-to-Superbull period, the first year focused on prototyping. In year two, the team released 40+ ALIZE titles, including ALIZE LITE. The original game world extended into the flagship narrative slot, Originals, Multiverse and seven LITE formats. My contribution combined hands-on creative execution, product framing and final creative approval, with UI/UX and delegated execution supported by my creative director and team. The ALIZE work is associated with the organisational SiGMA Asia 2024 Best Slot Provider Newcomer award.
Original IP · Narrative framing · Product strategy · ALIZE LITE formats