mobile gaming initiative
Product
Turning ideas into playable worlds
Client
Sinclair Digital
Role
Visual design, branding, UX/UI, product design
Timeline
6 weeks
The Problem
Considerations
Entering the mobile gaming space required balancing creative exploration with practical development realities. The team needed to generate concepts that were engaging, visually distinctive, and feasible within realistic budgets and timelines. At the same time, the games needed to support monetization strategies, such as advertising and in-app purchaseshile maintaining a fun, accessible experience for casual mobile players. Additionally, concepts had to be simple enough to reach market quickly while still feeling unique in a highly competitive gaming landscape.
Mobile gaming had become a massive market—worth over $30 billion annually—creating an opportunity for media companies to expand their digital footprint. Sinclair Digital assembled a small internal team of designers and developers to research the space and pitch original mobile game concepts that could both engage players and create new advertising and promotional opportunities tied to Sinclair’s broadcast network.
Criteria
To evaluate potential game ideas, concepts were assessed against several key criteria. Each game needed a clear and engaging gameplay loop, a visual style that could stand out in crowded app stores, and mechanics that translated well to mobile devices. Concepts also needed to be technically achievable with available resources and capable of supporting monetization through ads or microtransactions.
Ultimately, ideas were narrowed down through feasibility, development complexity, and overall potential for player engagement.
Focus area
As lead designer on the project, I contributed to concept generation, market research, and visual development. I helped ideate dozens of potential game ideas through structured brainstorming exercises, refine selected concepts, and create high-fidelity visuals, UX flows, and gameplay mockups for several of the final game pitches.
Explorations
As Sinclair Digital looked to expand its digital footprint, an internal team of designers and developers was tasked with researching the space and pitching original mobile game concepts as a potential entry point into the market.
Beyond creating new titles, the initiative was also intended to explore monetization opportunities, including advertising and cross-promotion through Sinclair Broadcast’s network of channels.
We began the project by generating a wide range of early concepts through structured brainstorming exercises. These included word association, reinterpretations of mechanics from popular games, and a mash-up activity where we wrote existing game titles on Post-it notes and randomly paired them to spark entirely new ideas.
This process quickly produced a large pool of potential concepts, allowing the team to explore unexpected combinations and identify the most promising directions for further development.
01 Initial Concepts
Spellosion
Spellosion emerged from the mash-up exercise, combining elements of Scrabble with the barrel-cannon mechanics from the Donkey Kong Country series. In the game, players launch their character like a cannonball to collect letters and form words. Players can compete against friends, challenge the computer, or aim to beat their high score while progressing through a variety of worlds and levels.
01 Overview
Players begin with a single character ball and can unlock additional characters by completing levels or through an in-game shop. Each character introduces a distinct visual style along with unique abilities, use the extra-heavy Big Blue to smash through obstacles, phase through walls with Spooks, or spin webs to navigate the environment with Spinsly.
02 CHaracter Balls
03 world
Explore new word filled words and levels from The Jungle to Deep Sea to the Dead Zone.
Run out of shots but still chasing that high score or trying to finish a level? Players can purchase additional shots to keep the run going. Alongside ads and character unlocks, this mechanic introduces another potential revenue stream for the game.
04 keep the game going
Dino joust
Dino Joust began as an idea that initially seemed too strange to pursue, but quickly became too fun to ignore. The game blends resource management and training mechanics with fast-paced, twitch-based quick-time events. Raise your dinosaur, improve its stats, and upgrade your gear in preparation for the next big joust.
01 Overview
In the stables, players complete mini-games, purchase upgrades, and unlock enhancements to improve both their stats and their mount. You can also research upcoming opponents, but time is limited. Joust day is always approaching, whether you're ready or not.
02 the stables
When joust day arrives, players charge down the field toward their opponent, dodging hazards like tar pits and falling meteors before the final clash. Victory depends on quickly striking disappearing weak points to knock your rival from their steed.
03 Joust day
Along the way, players encounter characters offering assistance, equipment, or special services. These allies can provide valuable advantages, but every deal comes with a price.
04 New encounters
Winning jousts earns in-game currency that can be used to unlock new mounts for your stable. From the sturdy Stegosaurus to the fearsome Tyrannosaurus, each dinosaur offers new strengths and strategies. Players eager to expand faster can also unlock mounts instantly using real currency.
05 Unlock New Dinosaurs
Trivia Racer
One stakeholder request was to explore a trivia game, based on the belief that the genre could be developed quickly as an “easy win” to demonstrate our ability to produce and launch a mobile game. Rather than creating a traditional trivia experience, we looked to add a competitive twist by combining trivia with a racing game format.
01 Overview
Players race against friends or the computer by answering trivia questions. The difficulty level determines how far your car moves; easy (1 space), medium (2 spaces), or hard (3 spaces). After a set number of laps, the race ends, so strategy and knowledge both play a role in crossing the finish line first.
02 Race Around the Track
The game draws from a wide range of trivia categories including History, Science, Pop Culture, and Current Events. We also explored integrating Sinclair’s news properties by delivering localized trivia questions to players through geo-targeting.
03 Questions
Players can participate in multiple races with friends simultaneously, allowing gameplay to continue without waiting for opponents to complete their turns.
04 Race Against Friends
In-game purchases provide players with power-ups that offer competitive advantages during races while also creating an additional revenue stream for the game.