The Resonance of Lumae: Game Design
Lumae is a narrative-based adventure game, pitched at stakeholder fidelity, with the goal of empowering young women in STEM.
Timeline: 10 weeksTools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Midjourney, Procreate
Problem:
How do you design a video game that reaches young girls and addresses the STEM-interest gap without feeling like another hollow educational experience, and realize the concept convincingly enough to make stakeholders believe it should exist?Solution:A high-fidelity concept buildout to make Lumae feel fully realized before development begins. Buildout includes: UI design system, hand-drawn character artwork, AI-assisted in-game assets, player-archetype-driven gameplay flows, and a marketing teaser video.
Skills: Branding, UI Design, Character Illustration, Interaction Design, Motion Design, Photo Manipulation, User Research
Collaborators:Carter Brantley – narrative design, character lore, marketing website homepage
Background
This project began as a school assignment with a specific constraint: experiment with AI image, video, and voice generation tools (alongside traditional image-making software) to stress-test their utility within a tight timeline. We leveraged AI as a concept communication tool to generate prototype assets quickly enough to present a fully realized game world within 10 weeks.
Part of that process was determining where AI tools genuinely extended our reach and where the work called for a more hands-on approach.
Prototype environments, character models, and animation assets were built with Midjourney and Gemini under heavy prompt direction, then refined in Photoshop for visual consistency with the hand-drawn character artwork. These assets were created quickly and are high fidelity in order to better communicate our pitch, and are not considered final. What they demonstrate is the viability of the concept, and how far a designer can extend their reach at the ideation phase.
Short animations of image assets were created for the accompanying teaser video using Midjourney, narration was voiced using ElevenLabs, and assets were edited together manually using Adobe AfterEffects.