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.
Studio: Improbable
Project duration: 1 year
Months 1-2: Team of 2 (myself and GM)
Months 3-12: Team of ~7
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!
