Smoke Break!

UI Designer @ Applewood Studios

JAN 2025 - MAY 2025

Genre: 3D Stealth Puzzle

Team Size: ~42

Brief

In this lighthearted 3D stealth puzzle game, play as Applewood — a living puff of smoke — with a knack for sneaky strategy.

Bamboozle bakers and outwit the janitor as you hunt down the ultimate, yet elusive, burnt pie!

WEBSITE

Play (Steam)

Play (Epic)

MY WORK AS UI DESIGNER:

Concepting, animating, and implementing over 6 enemy feedback alerts for stealth gameplay

Animating and implementing user interface elements for screens and cinematic sequences

Concepting, animating, and implementing 3 gameplay-centric HUD elements

DESIGN OVERVIEW

Enemy Alerts

In a stealth game like Smoke Break!, it’s important for players to know when an NPC sees or is looking for them.

I sought to make it particularly clear in the game by designing the NPC alerts to be three things:

apparent
bold
color-coded

I ended up designing big, animated thought bubbles with punctuation indicating their alert states.

A red exclamation mark indicates that it is actively chasing the player.

An orange question mark indicates that it is searching for the player.

Yellow ellipses indicate that the NPC is no longer on alert.

I animated each of the alerts and their entry/exit states in Adobe After Effects, exported them to sprites, and put the frames together in Unity’s animation system. I also ensured that they would trigger when they need to.

In a stealth game like Smoke Break!, it’s important for players to know when an NPC sees or is looking for them.

I sought to make it particularly clear in the game by designing the NPC alerts to be three things:

apparent
bold
color-coded

I ended up designing big, animated thought bubbles with punctuation indicating their alert states.

A red exclamation mark indicates that it is actively chasing the player.

An orange question mark indicates that it is searching for the player.

Yellow ellipses indicate that the NPC is no longer on alert.

In a stealth game like Smoke Break!, it’s important for players to know when an NPC sees or is looking for them.

I sought to make it particularly clear in the game by designing the NPC alerts to be three things:

apparent
bold
color-coded

I ended up designing big, animated thought bubbles with punctuation indicating their alert states.

A red exclamation mark indicates that it is actively chasing the player.

An orange question mark indicates that it is searching for the player.

Yellow ellipses indicate that the NPC is no longer on alert.

Health Bar

The project’s UI Lead, Nevaeh Li, provided me with their concept of Applewood’s health bar to create finalized motion designed assets for.

Because Applewood’s health corresponds directly with his ability to escape, it was important for me to use the concept to create a finalized in-game health bar that clearly and cleanly portrayed health loss and gain to the player.

I used Adobe After Effects to animate each individual element and designed an additional feedback text component in Unity.

The feedback text tells the player if they gained smoke or lost smoke. It also warns the player if they are at smoke capacity or out of smoke entirely.

Janitor Indicator

The Janitor is an NPC that spawns when any worker is alerted to Applewood’s whereabouts and leaves when no worker has seen Applewood in some time. Applewood cannot finish a level segment until the Janitor leaves, so the player should always be aware of the Janitor’s location while he’s around.

I animated assets in Adobe After Effects and implemented a Janitor location indicator. The indicator bounces faster the closer the Janitor is to the player.

Additional UI Elements

I also animated and implemented the following UI Elements: Level Select UI, Pie Thought Bubble, Machine Hit Damage, Machine Hit Prompt, Tutorial Text Boxes, Slider, Checkbox

REACH OUT: quizons@proton.me