Gathering Insights

Background

My role was to establish the overall look and feel of the prototype. I developed different visual styles for the UI and core screens and motion mocks that guided developers during implementation in Unity. I also worked directly in the game engine to implement 2D art assets and test how the design looked and responded during real gameplay.

This prototype phase was an experiment  to see which design and gameplay ideas had the most potential to move forward.

Competitor Analysis

I looked at leading competitors in the market to see which visual styles worked well and to identify opportunities for JW stand out.

Common themes I found:

Bright saturated colour palettes.

Flashy animations and particle effects to highlight key moments (e.g., clearing a level).

Thematic backgrounds reinforce progression through levels.

Audio cues paired with animations give players satisfying feedback and a sense of reward.

We decided to swap out the crossword-style layout for a more traditional grid format to better align with the Jeopardy! brand and also took advantage of backend structures already in place from JWT.

Conclusion

Next Steps

Through this exercise, we created a proof of concept that stayed true to the Jeopardy! brand while also standing on its own.

After establishing the core visual direction and gameplay, the project was handed off to the brand owner for further development and potential production.