Work under real constraints.

Humankind is a turn-based historical strategy game developed by Amplitude Studios and published by SEGA. Players guide a civilization from the Neolithic era to the modern age, shaping culture, diplomacy, cities, and military power through strategic decisions.

The goal was to adapt Humankind's complex PC interface and game mechanics into a seamless console experience. Navigation, controls, and layouts were reworked so the game's strategic depth remained accessible through gamepad interaction.

Cryptic Design collaborated with Amplitude Studios and Aspyr Media to refine and develop the UX/UI framework for the console adaptation. The work included interaction-model redesign, controller-friendly navigation, and iterative usability evaluation without compromising the game's strategic complexity.

The console adaptation had to preserve precision, clarity, and depth across several connected challenges:

• Translate mouse-and-keyboard interactions into gamepad-friendly controls.
• Keep complex menus accessible without overwhelming console players.
• Improve information hierarchy and readability at television viewing distances.
• Reduce cognitive load by restructuring menu navigation.
• Refine HUD and tooltip behavior while preserving necessary game detail.

Cryptic Design's primary responsibilities included:

• UX and UI adaptation for controller-based console navigation.
• Menu-flow and layout optimization.
• HUD and information-architecture improvements.
• Interaction, legibility, accessibility, and button-mapping enhancements.
• Heuristic evaluation and iterative usability testing.
• Prototyping and validation of interface components and interaction models.

WIN Reality is a virtual-reality baseball and softball training platform. It combines realistic pitching simulations, pitch-recognition drills, reaction training, and performance feedback for athletes at multiple levels.

The goal was to create an intuitive immersive environment where athletes could enter realistic training scenarios, find appropriate drills, make faster decisions, and understand their progress without interface friction.

The experience combined sports science, motion-captured pitchers, and interactive VR training in a tool designed for athletes ranging from developing youth players to professionals.

The interface clarified onboarding, drill discovery, profile selection, training customization, and feedback so players could focus on practice rather than learning the software.

The work covered research, user flows, visual direction, brand expression, design-library foundations, and immersive interface design for the Meta Quest baseball and softball training experience.

As Senior UX Designer, Robert contributed across discovery, requirements, workshops, prototyping, visual design, documentation, and implementation support in collaboration with product, engineering, art, and company stakeholders.

The role connected research and delivery across the product experience:

• Research athlete, coach, product, and stakeholder needs.
• Design legible immersive interfaces and training flows for Meta Quest.
• Facilitate workshops and align stakeholders on experience priorities.
• Prototype and evaluate VR interactions.
• Develop the visual theme and reusable interface library.
• Support engineering implementation and iteration.

The work clarified onboarding, training selection, immersive interaction, and the surrounding pod experience, helping athletes reach useful practice more confidently and consistently.

WIRE was a strategic science-fiction RPG in development at Digimancy Entertainment, built around narrative choice, world building, and turn-based tactical combat.

A combat breather phase gave players a deliberate pause to understand battlefield state, unit status, buffs, and tactical options before the next exchange.

Robert contributed UX/UI design, interaction models, visual hierarchy, menus, HUDs, dialogue flows, prototypes, and implementation guidance while working with Digimancy.

Figma supported wireframing and functional prototyping, with Adobe Creative Suite and Unity used across visual design, iteration, and in-engine collaboration.

The work concentrated on information density and clear player feedback:

• Balance high-information screens without overwhelming players.
• Create HUD states that adapted to different combat situations.
• Make actions, consequences, and combat feedback immediately legible.
• Maintain visual and interaction consistency across dialogue, menus, and combat.

Usability evaluation focused on text readability, color contrast, interactive clarity, and keeping essential gameplay information accessible without unnecessary overload.

WellSky provides software for health and community-care organizations. At the time of this work, its portfolio included roughly 70 products serving complex healthcare, caregiving, rehabilitation, hospice, and social-service workflows.

The work focused on improving consistency, interoperability, and usability across a broad product portfolio through shared design foundations, clearer interaction patterns, and a formalized design-library system.

The scope crossed multiple enterprise products and teams, with emphasis on standardizing visual language, improving cross-product workflows, documenting foundations, and resolving interaction-design needs in operational healthcare software.

As a Senior User Experience Designer embedded in engineering, Robert helped establish and maintain design-system foundations, collaborated with product teams, led research and requirements discussions, and designed solutions for multiple products.

The role supported product teams and the broader portfolio through several connected responsibilities:

• Create and maintain a formalized design library and shared visual standards.
• Improve interoperability and cross-product experience consistency.
• Partner with product managers, designers, engineers, and researchers.
• Lead UX research, requirements definition, and design documentation.
• Facilitate stakeholder reviews and translate findings into implementable solutions.

Shared design foundations reduced inconsistency, gave teams a clearer implementation reference, and supported more coherent experiences across a large family of healthcare products.

Onward is a tactical VR military shooter developed by Downpour Interactive, focused on realism, teamwork, communication, and coordinated combat.

The work focused on a cohesive visual language, clearer interaction design, stronger information architecture, and practical usability improvements within the Unity-based game experience.

As a UX Designer, Robert conducted research and analysis, helped define visual and interaction frameworks, created UI assets, supported feature ideation, and implemented interface work in Unity.

The scope included competitive analysis, heuristic evaluation, design principles, style-guide unification, information architecture, interface production, and implementation support.

The work connected strategic UX direction to production:

• Conduct competitive analysis and heuristic evaluation.
• Develop a unified visual style guide.
• Structure navigation and information architecture.
• Create and implement UI assets in Unity.
• Contribute interaction frameworks and new-feature ideas.

The resulting system improved consistency, navigation, readability, and usability across preparation and content-discovery flows.

Star Wars: Rise to Power was an unreleased mobile strategy game developed by Electronic Arts in collaboration with Lucasfilm. Its systems included faction alignment, base building, fleet management, alliances, and large-scale strategic conflict.

The project focused on a scalable UI/UX foundation for strategic play, including navigation, fleet and base management, diplomacy, live-service systems, and mobile interactions consistent with the Star Wars universe.

The work covered concept development, information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, implementation collaboration, and testing for the game's central mobile-strategy systems.

As Senior UX Designer at Electronic Arts, Robert defined UI/UX direction, created high-fidelity interface concepts, structured navigation and information architecture, and worked with game design, UI art, programming, and QA to refine the experience.

The work established an interface foundation for a dense strategy game:

• Define a cohesive UI framework for strategic systems.
• Design concepts for fleet control, base building, diplomacy, progression, and live events.
• Build navigation and information architecture around player decisions.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams during implementation.
• Test and iterate interface components for usability and scalability.
• Maintain franchise consistency while designing for mobile constraints.

The resulting concepts and interaction structures gave the unreleased title a coherent foundation for presenting complex strategy systems with greater clarity, consistency, and mobile usability.