Role
Product Designer
Team
1 Product Design Manager, 1 Product Designer, Engineers
Timeline
2 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Google Suite
Product Type
Gamified Event
Platform
What is Summon Worlds?
During my internship at OpenForge, I had the opportunity to design for Summon World, a platform where users can generate custom characters by simply writing a prompt. Each prompt produces a unique character with its own personality, appearance, and abilities.
To help promote the app and showcase its creative capabilities, the team planned a special livestream event where users could submit the characters they created to compete in a live battle. All submitted characters were organized into Team Light or Team Dark. While the interface was originally created for this one-time event, the long-term plan was for Summon World to refine it further and make it a public feature.
Challenge
One of the biggest challenges was designing a fully functional battle interface within a very limited timeframe. We had only two weeks to create the design before passing it to the engineers for development. The interface also needed to be ready for the livestream, where facilitators could easily add characters, display their stats, and manage live battles in real time.
Solution
The design featured a battlefield layout divided into three main sections. The left panel allowed facilitators to add and manage user-submitted characters, the center area served as the battlefield, where facilitators control live interactions, and the right panel displayed a battle log that captured all real-time updates. Our team focused on clarity, smooth navigation, and engaging visuals to ensure the interface performed reliably during the livestream.
User Research
Conducting competitive analysis to learn how other AI character-creation apps emulate D&D-style battles
Based on a competitive analysis of AI character creation apps with D&D style combat, I identified opportunities for Summon World and worked with the team to prioritize solutions that fit our engineering timeline. To meet the deadline, we simplified combat into three core actions: Attack, Defend, and Support, making the system easy to learn while preserving strategic depth. To address the text heavy experience of competitors like AI Dungeon, we designed a visual battlefield with character cards, helping players follow battles more easily and creating a more engaging experience.
Concept Exploration
In collaboration with my design manager, I explored multiple approaches for how a character card could appear on the battlefield. We had an initial direction of presenting the cards horizontally, but also tested more realistic, tabletop-inspired placements, which is similar to physical trading cards. We also looked at ways to visually distinguish light characters from dark characters.
From there, we focused on defining the card states. For example, how a card looks when idle and unselected, how it changes when selected as the user prepares an action, and how it appears once the character is defeated and no longer usable. These explorations shaped a clear visual language for every stage of the battle experience.
