Answer in 100 ms
The press finishes inside 0.1 s. No action waits for an animation.
Game UX/UI · iPhone
Divine Rush
Game UI a thumb can play.
Divine Rush: Flock of Light is an iPhone action game I'm building solo in Unity. This case study is about its UX and UI: controls sized by real use, one button language, dialogue that never blocks, and menus that read at a glance.
- Role
- Solo developer · UX/UI lead
- Scope
- HUD and controls, button system, menus, dialogue, art direction
- Focus
- Thumb reach, readability on a phone, feedback in 100 ms
Bring the light back to the sky
Seraph, a little angel archer, flies with his friends toward the Sky Temple while Gorvok’s purple mist spreads through the clouds. Shoot, dodge, call your wingmates, and keep going.
Level one, captured from the gameThe thumb decides the layout.
Buttons are sized by how often they are pressed, not by how important they sound.
Presses in a boss minute
Reach from the resting thumb
| Move | Old row | Cluster |
|---|---|---|
| Dodge → Catch | 2.16 bits | 1.16 bits |
| Dodge → Nova | 1.73 bits | 1.16 bits |
| Dodge → Volley | 1.11 bits | 1.16 bits |
Fitts’ index of difficulty, log₂(D/W + 1). Lower is easier.
The decision
- Dodge is the big button in the corner, under the resting right thumb.
- Volley, Nova and Catch sit on an arc 14 mm away, in order of use.
- Catch rests as a small bead and only grows into a button while a dazed creature is in range.
- Gold appears once: as the halo on the best move right now.
Shipped in level one: Dodge on a 58 pt circle and Arc Burst on 84 pt, with HOLD and cooldown on a separate label. Every active button is at least 44 pt.
The cluster above is the HUD spec for the temple level, drawn over a real capture. The phone shows the controls that shipped.
One button language, every state.
Normal, ready, cooldown, disabled and locked, for every power, from 32 to 96 pt.
Press like you mean it
Press to 0.92–0.95, confirm pop to 1.08–1.12. The old 0.97 press was too small to feel.
One hot colour per screen
Sun-gold marks the one best action. Everything else stays calm.
Disabled is not locked
Disabled shakes and says why. Locked shows a plate and unlocks with a moment.
Opaque panels
No see-through windows behind text, so labels stay readable over busy skies.
Respect reduced motion
Scale, spin and trails become colour and opacity changes. Sound and haptics stay.
0.93 on press, a 10% overshoot on release.
Meet the characters
One hero, four wingmates and the villain who started it all.
The hero
Seraph
A blond chibi angel with a golden halo, a blue scarf and a golden bow. Every other character is designed to look like his family.
Progress you can see
The Sky Temple starts small on the horizon and grows as the level goes on, so the goal itself is the progress bar. The top bar keeps only health, diamonds and pause.
Help that never steals the fight
Four wingmates fly in one at a time, each with a power you can tell apart at a glance. They clear part of a wave and always leave the rest for you, and their talk cards sit at the top, clear of Seraph and your thumbs.
Menus like a storybook
Painted ivory, azure and honey-gold icons on warm paper. One primary button per screen, labels never baked into art, and every label checked for overflow on real screenshots.
Armory, blessings and settings.
Rarity is a tint and a frame, never just a word. Settings include reduced motion, damage flash and text speed.
Meet the Flock
Twelve creatures, designed with their evolutions: a Puffling can become an Emberpuff or a Goldpuff.
Puffling
Emberpuff
Goldpuff
Pebblet
Boulderkin
Magmaw
Hoodling
Stormseer
Wisplet
Lumen Wisp
Manta Pup
Little Warden
Travel the Celestial Gardens
The first world map: islands linked by a golden path, from the gate to the temple.
Developer notes
How the game is being made, one decision at a time.
About this item
- Platform
- iPhone (iOS)
- Engine
- Unity 6
- Genre
- Sky-flight action
- No. of players
- 1
- Status
- In development · tested on device through TestFlight
- My role
- Solo developer: UX/UI, game design, art direction, characters and code
- UX/UI scope
- HUD and controls, button system, dialogue cards, menus, onboarding, accessibility settings
- Tools
- Unity, Blender, Meshy (3D generation), image and video generation for concepts
- Release date
- To be announced
