Building Cosmic Conflict: How Deep Storytelling Transformed Our EdTech Platform
From functional gamification to immersive universe creation
A comprehensive journey through meaningful engagement design that **increased student engagement by 230%** through strategic storytelling and competitive elements. This case study explores how we transformed a traditional EdTech platform into an immersive gaming universe that students genuinely crave to return to.
Client
EdTech Startup
Duration
3 years (ongoing)
Role
Lead Product Manager & Creative Director
Project Metrics
Area
EdTech
Impact
+230% Engagement
Project Team
- UX Designer
- UI Designer
- Game Designer
- Frontend Developer
- Backend Developer
Building Cosmic Conflict
How Deep Storytelling Transformed Our EdTech Platform
From functional gamification to immersive universe creation - a journey through meaningful engagement design
🎯 The Challenge: Beyond Surface-Level Engagement
Picture this: you're managing a B2B education platform with thousands of active students, decent engagement metrics, and all the classic gamification elements working reasonably well. Badges? Check. Points? Check. Leaderboards? Double check.
But something was missing—that magical ingredient that transforms a good product into something students genuinely crave to return to.
We were at that crucial inflection point every startup dreams of and fears: the transition from startup to scaleup. Our North Star was clear—increase Lifetime Value (LTV) by deepening student engagement across two critical dimensions:
- Frequency: Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users ratio
- Intensity: Weekly time spent per user
💡 The Epiphany: Learning from Gaming Giants
When I look at the gaming industry for inspiration, I don't just look at what's popular—I look at what endures. League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and Counter-Strike have maintained passionate communities for over a decade.
🏆 The Competitive Spirit
Humans are competitive by nature. When we win, we feel confident, happy, satisfied. When we lose, we learn resilience, emotional regulation, and how to handle frustration—arguably one of the most valuable life skills.
📚 Deep Storytelling
In League of Legends, you pick a character, form a team, and fight another team... over and over again. The story should be irrelevant, right? Wrong. It's precisely what connects players emotionally to the experience.
💡 Key Insight: We had the competitive element working, but we were missing the why. Why was the student on this space journey? What drove them to continue? What was their purpose?
🚀 Enter the Cosmic Conflict
In August 2022, I pitched something ambitious to our founders: the Cosmic Conflict. A science fiction narrative where Earth had evolved into an advanced society with three distinct Nations.
🌍 The Universe Framework
Setting: Young humans grow up neutral, then choose which Nation aligns with their principles and values
Crisis: Climate change made Earth uninhabitable
Mission: Nations pooled resources for space exploration, sending colonization missions to different planets
Uniqueness: Each Nation lands on a planet with unique characteristics, stories, visual identities, and rewards
The beauty of this system? It created what World of Warcraft does so masterfully—identification with a larger entity (your Nation) while providing personal story and reinforcing competitive spirit within the school environment.
⚙️ The Implementation: Beyond Points and Badges
Initially, our primary rewards were collectible avatar items. But in 2025, seeking more scalable and meaningful rewards, I conceived something different: collectible card sets that served dual purposes.
✅ Visual Appeal
Rewards that students actually wanted to collect and show off
📖 Storytelling Medium
Each card told part of their Nation's story without requiring lengthy text reading
🎮 Octalysis Framework Enhancement
This approach strengthened three additional engagement pillars:
- Calling: Purpose-driven engagement
- Social Influence: Nation pride and competition
- Unpredictability & Curiosity: Discovering new cards and stories
📈 The Results: When Engagement Becomes Addiction (The Good Kind)
The transformation was remarkable. Instead of the typical engagement decay over time, our usage intensity actually increased over multiple years.
But the numbers only tell part of the story. The real magic was watching students discuss their Nations outside class, debate planetary characteristics, and genuinely care about their collective progress.
🎓 Key Learnings: The Art and Science of Engagement
1. Content Consumption Has Evolved, Not Disappeared
One of my biggest revelations challenged a common assumption: students don't avoid stories because they don't like reading—they avoid them because of how those stories are presented.
By presenting our lore through collectible cards rather than traditional text blocks, we met students where they were, not where we wished they'd be.
2. Trust Your Team (Even When Your Ego Resists)
Personal confession: I initially wanted the Cosmic Conflict assets to be hyper-realistic. It felt more "serious" to me, more legitimate.
When our design team unanimously recommended less realistic, more stylized visuals, I swallowed my pride and followed their advice. They were absolutely right.
3. Gamification Without Purpose Is Just Digital Candy
Before Cosmic Conflict, our gamification was functional but shallow. We had all the mechanics but none of the meaning. Students need to care about why they're competing, not just what they're earning.
🌟 The Bigger Picture: Engagement as Education
What started as a quest to improve LTV metrics became something much more profound—a lesson in how storytelling can transform utilitarian experiences into meaningful journeys.
The Cosmic Conflict didn't just increase our engagement metrics; it created a framework for teaching values, encouraging healthy competition, and fostering emotional intelligence.
In an age where attention is fragmented and engagement is fleeting, we discovered that the answer isn't louder notifications or bigger rewards—it's deeper meaning.
Project Gallery
