Project: ICE
Role
UI/UX Designer, Game Designer
Type
Personal
Tools
Figma
Duration
Ongoing
Setting & Premise
Project: ICE takes place in a frozen wasteland where a small group of survivors holds out in a converted underground seed bank. Supplies occasionally turn up scattered across the ice, and a select group of searchers (prospectors, essentially) are sent out to find them and bring them back. They're the only thing keeping the community alive.
Constraints & Ownership
Working on a self-initiated project means every decision is mine to make and justify. There's no creative director to push back, no stakeholder to set the bar. On one hand it could be freeing, but it also means holding myself to that same rigor on my own. The story was still forming as I designed around it: survival, isolation, and what's left of a person after both. I had to build the interface without a finished narrative to lean on.
Building from the Ground Up
Pre-production covered three fronts. First, the world itself, where I had to work out how warmth, resources, weather, and wildlife would interact. Second, visual direction, in which I leaned heavily on the Nordic landscape photography, field survival gear, and brutalist architecture. Third, HUD and menu mockups, testing how much information the player needs against the stark environment.
Colder than the world outside
The UI leans monochromatic, with color reserved for state indicators such as health, warmth or danger. Everything else stays desaturated on purpose, in step with the icy, realistic environments and atmospheric lighting the game is built around. The interface is meant to match the feeling of isolation and practicality.
CONCEPT SHEET, ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER DESIGN EXPLORATION
REFERENCE BOARD - TOPOGRAPHY, ARCHITECTURE AND THE FACILITY
Outcome & Reflection
Project: ICE is still ongoing, with the story and interface developing in parallel. The core constraint continues to show through every mockup so far and to guide the remaining screens.
SELF-INITIATED PROJECT
Next project
Battlefield Mobile