A new visual design approach for a game, re-booted

CLIENTS
Thup Games https://www.thup.com/ for National CineMedia https://www.ncm.com/

TEAM
Jim Nichols, Thup Games - Co-Founder and CEO - Art Direction and Animation
Peter Ginsberg, Thup Games - Co-Founder
and Executive - Product Management and Game Design
Don Kim, Senior Director of UX,
National CineMedia

ROLE
UI / UX Designer - Contract

PLATFORMS
Web, Mobile - iOS

OVERVIEW

Thup Games designed and produced Noovie Trivia, a fast-paced movie trivia game for National CineMedia (NCM) America’s largest cinema advertising network. It was introduced to players in thousands of theaters in the pre-show to the film Avengers: Endgame. Noovie Trivia was produced using the latest WebGL technology, allowing the game to be played instantly in a web browser, as well as on mobile phones and the iPad, but any platform with a browser can be used: computer, mobile, tablet.

In a big moment of transition for this fast-paced movie trivia game project, I was contracted to help with the redesign of the game’s user experience, interface and visual design. The game was previously entitled Shuffle 2.0. The entire approach to the visual design needed to be re-booted. Given design direction and studying a style guide, I had to give the look of the game a more contemporary feel, but one that was in line with the current style of what NCM makes.

Challenge

My deliverables included wireframes and visual design comps for all game screens.

Process

 

Gameplay flow definition

Shuffle 2.0 User Flow

Wireframes

Visual Design

Brand voice direction table, provided by NCM. This is the table that inspired the explorations for the game’s backgrounds below.

Background explorations.

Backgrounds, combined with buttons explorations.

Some iterations for Main Menu screen.

Outcomes

Two years later I am happy to see the game downloadable on both the App Store and the Google Play Store. The overall color palette, main menu redesign, user profile icon and backgrounds suggested by my work and the team at Thup Games have been implemented. A multiplayer mode is still in the process of being developed. Download and play the game here: https://www.noovie.com/trivia

Examples of game play in-situ. Notice, the game currently employs something very similar to the design of the comp entitled Shuffle 2.0 Bckgrnd 9, above.