project · 2023

TheJoker

A four-handed Arabic card game built for the way it is actually played — sideways, at a table, with three other people talking over you.

role

game ui design

platform

ios · android

language

arabic · rtl

year

2023

the brief

01the problem

Card games ported to phones ignore how الجوكر is actually played — sideways, at a table, fast and social.

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02the solution

A landscape-first table built around the felt: everything else pushed to the rim, RTL-native, with guest-first entry.

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03my role

Game UI DesignInteraction DesignUX FlowsRTL LayoutVisual Design

the lobby

one screen, four ways in

The Joker lobby: the player card and coin balance top-right, a permanent left rail, and three tiles for private games, weekly tournaments and random matchmaking

A permanent left rail — friends, chat, notifications, settings — reachable without leaving the table.

Three weighted tiles, not a menu. The biggest one is the one most players actually want.

Profile, level and coin balance stay top-right, where a returning player looks first.

The Joker login screen — phone number, continue, and social sign-in

The Joker register screen — the same form with the register tab active

getting in

the shortestpossible door

one number, no password

A phone number and a code. Google and Apple sit underneath for players who would rather not type.

guest first

“Continue as guest” stays in the corner of both screens, so a first game never waits on an account.

the table

the felt does the talking

Everything that is not the game is pushed to the rim: chat and the menu on the left, the round counter and the score cross on the right, one primary action in the corner.

The four-player felt table — three opponents fanned around the oval, the discard pile at the centre, and chat, round counter, score cross and “Drop a Meld” pushed out to the rim

A player's hand of cards, fanned across the full width of the screen

two handed

The two-player table — one opponent across the felt

same table, either count

Seats redistribute around the same oval; nothing else moves. The rim, the hand and the score cross stay exactly where a returning player left them.

four handed

The four-player table — three opponents around the felt

table plum

#25102E

joker pink

#D9467B

felt green

#176E50

chip gold

#F5B44F

in writing

case studycoming soon

The full write-up — the rules research, the seating model and the RTL layout work behind this table — is being written up now.

all worksnext — qntumai →