RPG Dice: Heroes of Whitestone

Disclaimer

Public media used, technical details from memory and shipped features.

Mobile tactical RPG with board-game campaign progression, dice-rolling combat, gear/team loadouts, strategic card plays, and hero upgrades. Professional UI engineering at WIMO Games during 2022 launch.

More Details from a blog by Tom Purdue, Game Designer
Link to APKCombo

Events & Gear Inventory UI: Hooked up event screens and per-character gear loadouts in Unity/C#, showing swappable gear per slot with visual previews.
Combat Loadout UI: Built strategic placement screen for Combat Tiles (front/back row positioning), calculating and displaying total team power from levels, gear, and dice.
Victory UI: Implemented post-battle stats popup (damage dealt/taken, healing done) with earned item breakdowns.
Leveling Slider: Proposed and delivered bulk leveling UI slider from current+1 to affordable max (e.g. 6-15 or 6-100), with real-time stat change previews on drag.
Cards Tray UI: Created supplemental card system tray alongside dice movement. Supports strategic plays like "move 2 tiles," "move to objective". Finalized simple "Play" button under each card after drag-angle prototype.
Dice Tile UI: Designed conditional bonus selector (auto-picks closest match for race/class/element), adding preview points to dice roll for buff/debuff outcomes.
Data Table Viewer: Built custom Unity editor viewer to import/modify/export datasheets greatly improving development time for designers, artists, and producers.

Original one-level-at-a-time progression felt tedious for players with resources for bulk upgrades.

Replaced buttons with dynamic slider (min: current+1, max: affordable level via currency calculation).
Added live stat previews (HP/ATK/etc after upgrade) updating on drag for informed decisions.

Could extend to multi-character batch leveling or "optimal build" auto-suggest based on gear/dice synergies.

Designers wanted tactile "draw card upward to play" feel, but scrollable tray + drag conflicts risked confusion.

Prototyped angle-based detection, calculate drag vector from card origin: steep upward angle = "play", else scroll tray.
A/B tested with simple per-card "Play" button. Buttons won for reliability, shipped quickly.

Quick prototype proved upward-drag gesture was technically feasible (angle calc from drag origin worked reliably).
Testing revealed UX confusion in scrollable tray-players struggled with "steep enough" threshold, validating button as simpler shippable solution.

Gesture demos accelerate designer buy-in but must include edge-case playtesting early to expose hidden friction.
Hybrid approach: Default "Play" button (proven reliable), with optional swipe-up gesture unlocked via settings + on-screen angle guide (e.g. glowing arc preview during drag).