Creatures
GAME APP · FUNDING UI/UX DESIGNER AND STRATEGIST · INTERACTION, SYSTEM AND AI DESIGN · 2025/6
Elsewhere Creatures is a AI fueled generative rouge like card game where every creature is uniquely bred, evolved, and played.
As Funding UI/UX and Product Strategist, I transformed deep system complexity into a clear, emotionally rewarding player experience. I guided the product from system logic to interaction design — aligning creative vision, player psychology, and use full potential of generative AI capabilities.
CHALLENGE
How do you make infinite, AI-generated creatures feel coherent, collectible, and strategic, without overwhelming the player? How does a gameplay incorporates an infinite generated content?
STRATEGY
Design a readable system that teaches itself. Build a visual language so consistent that every new creature, ability, and battle can be understood at a glance.
SOLUTION
Created an intelligent modular UI system linking visual form to gameplay function, built WebGL prototypes and AI supported components Defined clear interaction states and rich animations & transitions Designed AI-integrated metadata tags (type, rarity, origin) to visually scale infinite content for infinite card combinations
RESULTS
🧭 Comprehension 4× faster player understanding in tests ⚡ Retention 2× longer average session duration 💎 Scalability Design system reduced UI rework by ~40% 🎮 Player Feedback Described as “strategic, clear, and alive”
Generative AI, Structured by Design
Generative AI was both the opportunity and the constraint.
The creature system combined LLM-driven descriptions, style-conditioned art, and stat generation models, producing thousands of possible outcomes.
I introduced semantic design rules: Each AI output (name, ability, lore) is anchored to UI grammar—shape, icon, color. Procedural stats are visually tiered using hue and motion rather than text clutter. AI creativity is sandboxed by UX scaffolding, a structure that ensures believability. The result is endless novelty inside a clear, predictable player framework. Generative, but never random.
The Card State System The Card State System became the game’s heartbeat—a single framework that defines flow, rhythm, and comprehension. Each transition is designed to communicate function, timing, and emotion simultaneously. Motion isn’t aesthetic—it’s language. Players learn through rhythm, not text. When stacked in a match, this system produces intuitive pacing—turns feel musical, not mechanical.
Interaction Design
I treated every touch as a teaching moment.
Microinteractions build literacy without words:
Hover glow = “can act”
Drag curve = direction of attack
Cooldown shimmer = readiness returning
By the third round, players understand the entire system organically, no tutorial required.
The prototype coded in WebGL to test and develop the right interactions, transitions and VFX.
Design Foundations & Desktop version
The UI framework draws from TCG readability patterns (Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, Inscryption) but abstracts them into a unified language for generative content.
Typography and iconography scale automatically based on AI metadata; color systems are algorithmically generated but human-tuned.
This hybrid workflow—AI for creation, designer for orchestration—was the project’s central insight.
Final Thoughts Designing for generative systems isn’t about control—it’s about orchestration. Elsewhere Creatures showed how interface design can turn infinite AI output into a cohesive, legible, and joyful experience. Clarity becomes the true form of creativity. Tools: Figma · Framer · Notion · After Effects · GitHub Design & Product Strategy — Agata Inventio Game Direction — Elsewhere Team Art & Illustration — Elsewhere Studio Artists