Experience Design UX/UI Design, Civic Design, Educational Gaming

Imagin8V Park

Building a video game as a stepping stone to help high schoolers understand the housing crisis, and to spark real community engagement along the way.

View Prototype

Role

UX Designer, Motion Designer, Researcher, Creative Direction

Timeline

Fall 2025 to Present

Tools

Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate

Team

With Allie Rudnitsky, Erin Grisar, and Kyle Vang · MS Design + Innovation

View Prototype

What if we had the time to imagine, and the audacity to dream?

Posed by our collaborators · sparked the entire ideation process

The Challenge

Imagin8V Park is a digital empathy engine for civic transformation, an attempt to make the wicked problem of the housing crisis legible to middle and high school students and the wider community, without flattening it into something simplistic. The goal was an accessible, interactive way into a policy issue that's usually discussed only in rooms most people never get into.

The Solution

The core of the experience is an interactive, scenario-based simulation built as a high-fidelity Figma prototype, letting users digitally visualize and customize community spaces while picking up civic and housing concepts along the way. A physical portal doorway, a laser-cut silhouette of Terry the ghost dog, and printed worksheets carried the world off the screen and into the exhibit space, so visitors walked through the story instead of just clicking through it.

Imagin8V Park · Figma Prototype

Play the full click-and-play prototype right here, or open it in Figma. All motion and interaction in the prototype, including the portal intro, was designed and animated by hand.

Visual Identity

Branding

Logo

Color Palette

Navy

#0F2A44

Portal Blue

#2478C9

Dusk Violet

#574C8A

Garden Green

#75A140

Soft Sky

#9FC1E5

Paper White

#FFFFFF

Fonts

Display

Imagin8V Park

Sweet and Salty

UI & Dialogue

Hmm, which house first?

Neucha

Process

Five Phases, One Prototype

We moved from rough storyboards to a click-and-play prototype in five structured phases, checking in with partners like Adams Garden Park, CR8TV House, and Adam Carr along the way.

Storyboarding
Mapped how players move through the game and where they learn.
Cohesive Design System
Locked in color, type, icons, and character style.
Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Tested structure and mechanics with simple wireframes.
High-Fidelity Prototyping
Pushed toward final visuals, guided by partner feedback.
Final Draft
Refined and finalized the handoff-ready prototype.

Core Mechanic

Customizing the Community

Players start on a digital map of a neighborhood showing real, visible problems: locked buildings and lots waiting to be addressed. Clicking into one unlocks a task, and completing it reflects back on the map itself, so the neighborhood visibly improves as players learn, turning an abstract policy issue into something they can see themselves changing.

The in-game community map: a blueprint-style illustration of Office, Community Hub, Science Lab, Restaurant, and Orchard buildings, each marked with a lock icon except the completed Community Hub — The community map: each location starts locked, and unlocks as players complete its task.

Gameplay screenshot: three houses on a street with the prompt 'Hmm which house should I go to first?' — Choosing which house to visit first.

Gameplay screenshot: Barry standing in front of a For Sale sign, explaining what a real estate holding company is — Learning about real estate holding companies at the Absentee House.

Gameplay screenshot: an elderly neighbor character talking about her dream of a shared community orchard — Meeting a neighbor who dreams of turning her garden into a shared community orchard.

Cast

Meet the Guides

Five characters carry players through the story: Cherry and Barry, the two guides who work with players to improve their community and, in doing so, improve their own future too, plus Peach, Remy, and Granny Smith, who round out the cast of neighbors players meet along the way.

Character sheet for Imagin8V Park showing five illustrated characters: Cherry in blue overalls, Barry in a baseball cap and polo shirt, Peach a small girl in a strawberry hat holding a lollipop, Remy a mustached chef holding a rolling pin, and Granny Smith, an elderly woman in glasses and a purple sweater holding an apple — The core cast: Cherry, Barry, Peach, Remy the chef, and Granny Smith.

Special Mention

Terry

The dog who acts as the catalyst for starting the player’s journey in the game.

Portrait of Sharon Adams in an ornate pink frame

Portrait of Larry Adams in an ornate blue frame

Real-World Inspiration

Cherry and Barry are grounded in real people: Sharon and Larry Adams, whose continued work at Adams Garden Park has been turning blighted lots into community space since 2020.

Narrative Design

The Story

A four-beat arc carries players from the problem to their own hand in the solution, told through Cherry and Barry as guides rather than a wall of text.

Dystopian Present

Players start in a neighborhood in decline, the wicked problem made visible and personal.

Meet Cherry & Barry

Players get pulled back in time and meet their guides, right where the decline began.

Community Tasks

Players take on civic engagement tasks, learning housing concepts by doing.

Thriving Present

Players return to a present day neighborhood shaped directly by their decisions.

Exhibit

Gallery

ExhibitThe team behind the physical portal cutout we built for the exhibit.

The exhibit kiosk: a monitor showing the Imagin8V Park Begin Journey screen, a laser-cut acrylic silhouette of Terry the ghost dog, our printed process book, a laptop, and a worksheet introducing stakeholders Sharon and Larry Adams of Adams Garden Park — ExhibitThe kiosk setup: the Begin Journey prototype, a laser-cut silhouette of Terry the ghost dog, our printed process book, and the Adams Garden Park stakeholder page.

A visitor leaning over the exhibit table to look at the laptop screen while two team members explain the project — ExhibitWalking a visitor through the prototype at the exhibit table.

Stacks of printed Imagin8V Park Community Redesign Challenge worksheet booklets laid out on the exhibit table — ExhibitPrinted Community Redesign Challenge worksheets for visitors to take the exercise home.

Key Takeaways

Learning directly from stakeholders like Sharon and Larry Adams made the whole project feel grounded, and worth the ambition of building a full game around it.
Taking that on in a single short semester meant picking up new techniques fast, and getting a much clearer sense of what’s actually realistic in that kind of timeframe.
The biggest lesson was how to get an idea moving no matter what stage it’s at, instead of waiting for the conditions to feel perfect before starting.
I’m still open to developing Imagin8V Park further, including building it out on other game engines.

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