Creative Lead on Jitter.tv
Jitter turns Twitch streams into fully interactive, Twitch-integrated gaming experiences.
I led Jitter from its inception, defining the vision, ideating the core experience and shaping the project from early prototyping through to its live release and beyond.
My time on the project was one year during Improbable, starting as a team of two and growing to a team of six plus externals.
2,000+ players vrs 1 twitch streamer
behind the scenes +
behind the scenes +
Step 1: Market and user research
When the GM approached me, he knew he wanted a Twitch-integrated game but didn’t yet know what the experience should be.
I kicked off the project by conducting market research and interviewing Twitch streamers to learn about their needs, motivations and what gets their viewers excited.
From the insights, I crafted a design brief that would achieve a strong product-market fit.
Step 2: Ideation
A producer joined us and as a trio, we explored ideas through a brainstorm that generated more than twenty distinct game concepts.
We filtered these ideas against my design brief and arrived at a winning game: a mob stampede. It was a concept I had previously explored at Improbable that found a perfect home here. Best of all: we were all excited by it!
I then expanded this into a fully formed design, creating an internal treatment deck and game wiki that aligned the team around a clear, shared vision.
(Image: A quick 1 min mock up I collaged together during a previous brainstorm of the mob stampede concept.)
Step 3: Prototyping
When our tech design lead joined we immediately moved into prototyping and began playtesting from week one.
I briefed new joiners on the vision and built a team culture where everyone felt empowered to contribute ideas.
Step 4: Art direction
Before our artist arrived, I established the art direction. Since the game’s mechanics leaned violent I proposed a plasticine world, intentionally pushing the visuals towards harmless slapstick to soften the tone.
I worked closely with the tech design lead to create an art bible that balanced creative ambition with technical feasibility.
When the artist joined I pitched the direction and he enthusiastically expanded on it. We refined the style together landing on his brilliant through-line: “A world made by a kid and their parent using things found around the house.”
(Images: Reference images and quick collages I made for the art bible.)
Step 5: Doing it live!
We partnered with a major Twitch streamer to launch our prototype. I pitched the game and got their buy in.
In the lead up to the event I trained the team who were new to live production on how to showcall and operate a live game smoothly under pressure. I set up our show-day comms architecture, ran dress rehearsals and created a full emergency protocol so the team felt confident and prepared.
Thanks to their quick learning the event ran brilliantly! Our prototype received an outpouring of enthusiasm and support from players.
I ran a design retro and analysed game data and player feedback to determine how to improve the game for our next release.
With all the information, I pitched a shift in direction to the team: from a game of tag to a game of tower defence. I proposed new features and improvements such as adding co-operative obstacles.
I got team buy-in and worked with the producer and GM to build a feature roadmap for 2025.
Step 6: Setting a new direction
Throughout development I ran regular brainstorming sessions that helped us generate ideas. Often with plenty of laughter along the way!
I set the brief for each session, facilitated the discussion, then identified and distilled the strongest concepts into clear design documents, which I presented back to the team for development.
Step 7: Team brainstorming
Step 8: Directing externals
We worked with an external studio to build the twitch extension. Together with the GM, producer and tech design talent, I directed the external team with documentation and regular design check ins.
(Images: How my mock up became final assets.)
Step 9: Success!
We partnered again with the same major Twitch streamer to launch our second prototype.
The new direction went down incredibly well with the audience. I don’t need to explain, you can see for yourself in the video!
