Twill: Uplift + Negative Knockout
revamping two mobile games for mental health
Overview
AGENCY
We Are Royale
ECD: Loren Judah
Art Director: John Almazan
Producer: Michael Cauchi
Designers: Elleyce Pahang, Erika Morales
CLIENT
Twill Health
MY ROLES
Visual Design
Mobile UI
TOOLS
Photoshop
Figma
TIMEFRAME
5 weeks
Formally known as Happify Health, the client came to us for help redesigning their existing games to feel more modern and visually aligned with their rebrand. The first game we worked on, Uplift, consisted of filtering through negative and positive words appearing on hot air balloons. As you traversed each level, you'd find yourself in different environments.
The next game, Negative Knockout, had users transform a gloomy landscape into a bright one as they knock out negative emotions. We made sure to design it to have its unique aesthetics, but still fit within the visual language we had created for Uplift.
For both games, I worked on developing the visual language and applying that to multiple background illustrations as well as exploring a fresh update on the game UI.
Uplift
When developing the illustration style, we were inspired by games like Journey, Monument Valley, and Alto's Adventure. All of which have calming backgrounds throughout gameplay, which felt appropriate within a mental health app.
Each of the game's five levels had a unique background with a day and an alternative afternoon/night style.
Home is a central part of our lives that we can all speak to in whatever shape or form it comes in or has yet to. We wanted to explore this topic and portray the different perspectives people have in hopes that the audience could reflect and resonate with their own experiences.
With this in mind, we spent a summer conducting 19 in-person interviews and also received 13 written responses that became the inspiration source for our characters and storyline.
Post interviews, we picked up AFH roughly during winter break in January to set us up to be at a good checkpoint in order to complete part 1 of the game for our senior spring capstone.
Alternative backgrounds explorations
I had a lot of fun creating different moods with the backgrounds and it was a great exercise on playing with color.
Post interviews, we picked up AFH roughly during winter break in January to set us up to be at a good checkpoint in order to complete part 1 of the game for our senior spring capstone.
Microinteractions
Along with the new UI design, I also did a little bit of exploration on some fun microinteractions that could enhance the experience of leveling up or unlocking new power-ups.
Negative Knockout
For Negative Knockout, we kept a similar visual style but added more detail through geometric shapes and defined edges to fit the destructible objects that this game included.
Post interviews, we picked up AFH roughly during winter break in January to set us up to be at a good checkpoint in order to complete part 1 of the game for our senior spring capstone.
As players knock out the negative emotions, the background would reflect the progress level, turning a gloom-filled environment into their respective sunny versions.
Future Games
In Twill's suite of games, there's a hidden object game that we did some initial designs on. Again, creating a visual style that feels unique but still part of the family to tie their games together. And also maintaining consistency with the game UI.
