Juha Impivaara

Kards is a free-to-play collectible card game set in World War II, by the Icelandic company 1939 Games. Originally a Windows desktop game on Steam, I joined to bring the experience to mobile — revamping the interface and user experience from a 16:9, mouse-only setup into a responsive, resolution- and aspect-ratio-agnostic multiplatform version.

The complete UX rebuild also let us add flexibility and extensibility for yet-unknown future features, and communicate better with players through the in-game menus and screens. I did the practical work in Illustrator and Photoshop and implemented the UI in Unreal Engine, with the PC version live throughout development.

Through alpha and beta I distilled user feedback, data and thousands of lines of Discord discussion into an actionable roadmap. I also helped with marketing and in-game visuals, a new logo and game icon, web-extension design for account management, and mobile-specific tech art and effects optimisation — and acted as design liaison between the Reykjavík and Helsinki offices.

Freelancing at the time, I was first asked for just a logo for “a new startup company”. On meeting the founder it turned out Mr. Fahad was building a games studio in Amman, Jordan — and one thing led to another until I found myself Art Director of the fledgling studio, tasked with branding the company. The brief: “Something cyber like… with a retro vibe. Not too Arabic, a bit, maybe. But make it bold!”

The circuit-board motifs that gave rise to the brand imagery came after the logo was finalised. I built a sparkly, buzzing splash video for presentations, and chose colours and typefaces to carry that boldness — red-black-white, a bit cliché, but it works. Na3m also had a daughter, Yalla Ta3leem, a family-friendly educational brand we deliberately kept visually separate from the mother company.

We moved to Tallinn with four Rovio alumni and a master plan to found an indie game company — and Aie Interactive was born. My responsibilities were visuals and design: game conceptualisation and documentation, visual mockups, moodboards and final assets. Our target was the fledgling Ouya console, which met its premature demise right as we got our first game ready for release.

The art and design department pivoted to subcontracting. The most sizeable project was Alien Robot Monsters (A.R.M) for Kraftix Games — a retro 8/16-bit feel at modern resolutions, for which I designed logos, UI, backgrounds and stills, animated characters, level-designed about half the stages, and worked as client liaison. A later project, Thrusters, was a return to the roots of the Finnish indie scene — Auts and Turboraketti with a dash of Star Control Super Melee.

“Harwil Ya Wash!” started as a training project for a new programmer hire, as Na3m moved to Unity and wanted to experiment with its 2D features. We chose a retro 8/16-bit pixel-art aesthetic with fitting music and audio, and after a couple of weeks realised it could become a real released title.

I led the project, designed the gameplay, and created all artwork and UI/UX. I also handled audio outsourcing and hired a local artist for the music, with SFX a team effort and voice work by founder Fahad Al-Saud. On release I built the marketing plans, art and video. From humble beginnings the game topped the download charts in the MENA region and was featured by Apple on the App Store.

Biddl was a step out of pure gaming. I joined as a freelance artist doing character designs for the company mascot, and as the startup grew I came on full-time as its art & design person. The app itself is a gamified shopping experience — akin to DealDash, with more emphasis on interactivity.

I was responsible for character design, UI/UX, artwork, and marketing materials including banners, posters and video, and I maintained the investor pitch deck. The app runs on an HTML5 engine; I worked mostly in Adobe's suite with a little 3ds Max for added oomph. The company later pivoted to a more traditional shopping experience and exists today as Blidz.

Back when Nokia was still a name in consumer mobile, I joined Offscreen Technologies — “Offscr”. Its main product was Origo IDE, an API/engine toolset to ease multiplatform mobile development, akin to Unity today, compiling to iOS, Android, Symbian, Maemo/MeeGo, macOS and Windows.

As a side project we agreed to populate Nokia's Ovi Store with around one hundred bite-sized apps and games. I generated the concepts and produced the artwork — a great lesson in simplifying everything so any imaginable audience could pick a thing up instantly. If you could have only one button, why have two? Our team was three artists and three coders, working extremely agile.

Starting my full-time career in the industry as a Game Artist and moving into Lead Artist duties, I worked on numerous titles for Rovio, including subcontracting work for clients such as EA, Namco/Bandai and Nokia. Responsibilities ran wide — from game art to UI and UX, prototype and pitch videos, training new artists, and art-team management.

The main tool of the trade was Pro Motion, a modern take on the venerable Deluxe Paint, alongside Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and the in-house tools at Rovio and its clients.

• War Diary: Torpedo! Rovio
• Dragon & Jade Rovio
• Burnout EA Mobile
• Star Marine Rovio
• Burger Rush! RealNetworks
• Idols / X-Factor Namco/Bandai
• Paper Planes! Rovio
• Army Sniper Rovio
• Bounce Boing Voyage Nokia
• Totomi Rovio

Caravan Master is both an action runner and a trading simulation — think Subway Surfers meets Pirates!. It began as a simple “camel calling” game where you herded camels by tapping the screen edges, but we loved the characters and assets and wanted to up the ante. Within a couple of weeks we had a grander concept ready to test.

You travel city to city in runner-style 3D action sequences and trade goods at the marketplaces. Action can win you money but also lose you trade items — watch out for bandits. Buy cheap, sell high, get rich, build a caravan empire. I was responsible for game design and project management, audio outsourcing, art direction and graphic design, and most of the UI.

SGR — unofficially “Saudi Girls Racing / Revolution” — was an ambitious, large-scale project at Na3m, planned as a franchise from the start: a racing action game for touchscreens combining fast gameplay with a strong narrative. As project lead I handled art direction, gameplay design and general management. Sam Pak was the main concept artist; Fahad Al-Saud provided the narrative cues and world-building.

The original title was “Saudi Girls Revolution”, but as the themes — rebel women racing motorcycles — were revolutionary enough already, we toned it down to simply “SGR”. Due to time constraints the racing title was postponed and ultimately cancelled, leaving a 100-page design bible, dozens of concept images, in-game assets and narrative texts waiting for a revival. Na3m went on to produce a beat-'em-up with the characters and a spin-off comic series.

Read Polygon's feature on the project →