Hi Highrisers 
,
Nintendrew here from the Worlds team. I’m a Senior Software Engineer and led the development of Studio Events, a direct upgrade to the former Events.
For those who may not know, Events are Highrise’s weekly challenges where players compete to climb the leaderboard through themed minigames. Whether it’s trying to spook others in Prank or casting votes for the best outfits in Style Challenge, Events have always been a core way for players to play, earn rewards, and connect with the community.
Last week, we released our first Studio Event, Cozy Club, marking a major step forward in how events are built and run in Highrise. Studio Events has given us more flexibility to create, balance, and expand events faster than ever.
Now that the event has wrapped up, we wanted to share a bit about why we made these changes, what we learned, and what’s next as we continue improving the experience.
From Events to Studio Events
Over time, Highrise events like Runway, Prank, and Style Challenge have grown to be some of the most important parts of the game. But under the hood, the systems running them had not changed much in almost a decade.
This made improving and experimenting with events increasingly difficult. Any small change, even something like tweaking an energy mechanic, required significant manual work.
The move to Studio Events was about modernizing that foundation. By rebuilding events in Studio, we can now:
- Respond to player feedback faster and roll out changes quickly.
- Experiment with new events without breaking existing ones.
- Improve stability and performance across player devices by retiring outdated code.
- Empower creators, since the same tools powering Studio Events will eventually give creators more opportunities to build in the future.
It’s a long-term investment that will make Highrise events more dynamic, flexible, and player-driven.
(Before) legacy Prank Event
(After) Studio Event
What Changed in Studio Events
The release of Cozy Club introduced the first version of Studio Events. Because we were rebuilding from the ground up, a few gameplay systems needed to change for technical compatibility and testing purposes.
Consumables Temporarily Removed
Lucky Tokens and Batteries were deprecated in favor of a simpler system as a temporary compromise. They were hardcoded into the legacy client, making them incompatible with Studio. This meant they could not appear in the shop or work properly in the new system.
To account for this, all items in the Participation track now provide a Ticket Boost instead! This is a temporary fix, as our team is working to solutions for the missing Lucky Tokens, Batteries, and other consumables to the Event Shop and Lucky Wheel.
Energy Is Auto-Consumed
In Cozy Club, Energy was automatically used as soon as it was earned or purchased. If a player saw “x0” for the number of Energy they’ve earned, that was a quick visual quirk of that Energy being automatically used. This was a temporary compromise to reuse the old Energy system inside the new Studio framework for the sake of having Studio Events up and running smoothly.
Early Results
We always want to make sure projects like Studio Events are impactful to both our player base and team. To determine this, our main metrics with the launch of Studio Events include:
- Technical performance is on par or exceeds that of the legacy Events
- Represent a measurable improvement to the user experience
Using these metrics, here are the key performance metrics from the Cozy Club event:
- Free-to-play completion rate: increased from approximately 10–14% in previous events to 26%.
- Paying player completion rate: increased from about 60% to 77%.
- New player completion rate: increased from 2% to 9.5%.
- Average playtime was around 42 minutes, compared to 60–70 minutes in earlier events. This change aligns with a higher completion rate and a shorter overall time to finish the event.
These results provide a clearer picture of how the updated event system affected player participation and progression patterns.
Player Feedback and Challenges
Alongside positive engagement metrics, we heard clear feedback from players, and we are already acting on it. Here are our top feedback and our plans moving forward.
Dissatisfaction with Auto-Consume Energy System
When we introduced auto-consumed Energy, our initial assumption was that players wanted a simpler system. Energy would be automatically used as soon as it was earned or purchased, removing the need to manually activate it.
However, we learned that players valued the control and strategy provided by the previous Battery system. Saving Batteries allowed players to plan their sessions, using it during Super Boosts or Party Time for higher scores, and let their Energy naturally regenerate between sessions.
This shift removed an important layer of flexibility and pacing that many players enjoyed. We’re now exploring ways to bring back the Battery system or a similar mechanic that restores that level of control.
Event UI Felt Clunky
Players felt like the UI and text was hard to read and unintuitive. We’re working towards improving the UI as well providing some hotfixes to make these menus more accessible.
Moving Forward
Studio Events are a long-term change, and this first version was a major learning opportunity. We’re taking everything we learned from Cozy Club to make the next Studio Event even better. However, before releasing the next Studio Event, we have decided to pause and focus on improvements.
This week, we will be running a legacy Style Challenge event (just like you know and love!) while our team prioritizes refining and polishing the Studio Event experience.
Final Thoughts
The launch of Studio Events was a big step toward a more flexible, scalable, and creative event system for Highrise. Even though Cozy Club came with a few trade-offs, it validated our direction with better data, higher completion rates, and more room to grow. Your feedback has been instrumental in shaping where we go next. Every report, comment, and suggestion helps us fine-tune Studio Events into something truly special.
Thank you for helping us build the future of Highrise, one event at a time.