GameDev Chapter
Designing Games for Sharp Thinkers
Client
Easybrain
Services
Product Design, UI/UX Design, Graphic Design
Industries
GameDev
Date
2022
Overview
What continues to captivate me about design leadership is how it transforms you across different fields. Moving from outsourcing to GameDev revealed a fascinating shift in design thinking. While traditional product design focuses on user-centric approaches, the gaming industry demanded a complete switch to player-centric design principles, bringing unique interaction patterns and ways of thinking.
This role also marked my first experience working with a large product design team (15+ accomplished specialists) and coordinating efforts across marketing, graphic design, and motion design teams. While NDAs prevent me from sharing specific work, I can discuss the challenges we overcame and key insights about scaling design processes in gaming.
Solitaire & Spider Solitaire
Where Every Decision Impacts Millions & Success Meets Responsibility
What's particularly meaningful to me is being entrusted with design leadership for some of the company's flagship products. Working with established million-player games brings substantial responsibility, but I've been fortunate to collaborate with an exceptional team whose guidance and support helped navigate the initial complexity of the role.
Design Legacy Management
The products had accumulated years of mockups, test samples, and experimental designs. To understand the product history and improve workflow efficiency, I reorganized all Sketch and Zeplin files. This streamlined the team's work, particularly helping QA specialists navigate versions more effectively.
Multi-Product Focus
Leading design for both games in parallel added an extra layer of complexity to the process. While Spider Solitaire is essentially an expanded version of classic Solitaire, managing design updates and improvements across two products demanded careful synchronization.
iOS & Android: Cross-Platform Consistency
Maintaining design consistency across iOS and Android for both games required a careful balance between platform-specific guidelines and our unique game identity. The biggest challenge was adapting card interactions for smaller screens – ensuring features like card stacking remained intuitive even on compact displays.
Design-to-Unity Workflow
Preparing design assets for Unity demanded attention to technical specifics. Each sprite required precise organization with clear naming conventions, measurements, and multiple states. We optimized our Sketch-to-Unity workflow to ensure developers could efficiently implement UI elements while maintaining game performance.
Dealing with Localization
Adapting the interface for 10+ languages required strategic thinking. We had to anticipate space for longer word translations, find shorter alternatives where needed, and maintain accessibility when adjusting font sizes. Yeah, my philology background proved particularly valuable in navigating these linguistic design decisions.
Motion Cues for Gameplay
Developing detailed prototypes using InVision & Figma for new card game features went hand in hand with improving the overall user experience. We enhanced player guidance by implementing animated visual hints, and introduced a horizontal view option for more comfortable gameplay.
A pinch of creativity: Creating the Pirate Theme
Beyond core product design, I had a chance to add a creative touch to Solitaire by developing a new pirate theme. This included designing a stylized card deck and background art, bringing fresh visual flavor to the classic gameplay and helping attract new players to our well-established product.
APP STORE
GOOGLE PLAY
Logic Puzzles
200+ Gameplay Moments Visualized
I should confess – this is one of my favorite games that I still play regularly. When I joined the project, the game already had a strong foundation, but needed a fresh take. Working closely with the game designer, we reimagined the experience by adding new levels and puzzles. My role involved creating a set of illustrations for each level – ultimately delivering over 200 unique images that are now part of the interface.
APP STORE
GOOGLE PLAY
Gin Rummy
The game is currently out of store. But trust me, it was a great one.
Gin Rummy, a strategic card game that gained popularity in the 1930s, became my first experience designing a game from the ground up as part of the R&D team. Working with our established card games design system significantly accelerated our process, allowing us to focus on Gin Rummy's unique mechanics and market fit.
Following a lean design approach, we moved quickly through interactive prototypes. The existing design system helped us rapidly validate different game scenarios, while user testing sessions provided valuable insights for refining the game mechanics and interface.