Back to UX Portfolio
UX Case Study · Design Lead
Pawlarity
A cozy couch co-op game where two house cats, suddenly magnetized, are stuck in an unknown city, needing to work together to get back home for dinner.
42Weeks in Production
26Peak Team Size
2Core Co-op Mechanics
3Semesters
Production ran across three semesters with a growing team—so this study is organized by systems and topics, not a single linear timeline. Each section below is laid out in full so you can scan the whole story at once.
What I Led
Design lead for the project, with hands-on UX and narrative design: core co-op mechanics, tutorial flow, menus, personas and pillars, and how story shows up in spaces—not a separate narrative case study, but integrated where it supports clarity and co-op feel.
Constraints
Forty-two weeks and three semesters; team scaled from eighteen to twenty-six; tutorial and onboarding had to carry a novel magnet-and-collision loop for couch co-op without a long cutscene pipeline.
Chapter 01
Personas & Design Pillars
Player types and design pillars that anchored every UX decision below.
Chapter 02
Magnetization UX
Co-op pull, attachment, and readability when both cats share one magnetic force.
How it works
Playtesting feedback
How it looks now
Chapter 03
Collision UX
How players negotiate tight city spaces while linked—failure, recovery, and fair co-op blame.
First ideation
How it works
Playtesting feedback
How it looks now
Chapter 04
Tutorial UX
Onboarding the magnet-and-movement loop for couch co-op without breaking the cozy tone.
Inspiration
Iterations & wireframes
In engine
Chapter 05
Narrative & Space
Story delivered through beats, environment, character read, and how levels gain meaning over time.
Emotional beatmap
Narrative through environment
Character personalities
Recontextualization of level spaces
Chapter 07
Design Lead & Production
How work was split across disciplines and tracked on GitHub with Kanban.