Emazey

Corporate trade show booths face a fundamental attention problem. Attendees are overwhelmed by competing exhibitors, generic marketing materials, and decision fatigue. EY's Digital Engineering team recognized that traditional approaches, static displays with printed collateral, were failing to communicate the firm's creativity and technical capabilities. The brief for CyberCon was ambitious: create an interactive experience that would stop people mid-stride, communicate EY's innovation credentials, and be memorable enough to spark follow-up conversations.

EMAZEY emerged from this challenge. The project was a browser-based arcade game that drew visual inspiration from classic games while embedding EY's values into gameplay mechanics. The goal wasn't just entertainment; it was using game design as a vehicle for brand storytelling that felt authentic rather than forced.

Working closely with the visual design team, I received static sprite concepts that needed to become animated, responsive game characters. This translation process revealed numerous technical challenges. Sprites designed independently needed consistent animation frame rates, hitbox dimensions, and state transitions. I integrated the sprites with the game engine to determine how characters moved, attacked, and responded to player input, ensuring gameplay felt consistent across different enemies and environments.

Our software team operated in agile sprints, dividing responsibilities across front-end interaction, game logic, asset integration, visual coherence and backend integration. My primary focus was the visual and interaction layers, whilst also working on game logic: implementing the game screens, ensuring seamless transitions, and creating the polish that makes an experience feel professional rather than prototyped.

We established clear interfaces between different parts of the codebase. I could work on screen transitions and UI elements independently while colleagues refined game logic and scoring systems. This modular approach accelerated development and allowed parallel workstreams. Weekly integration sessions brought everything together, revealing where our separate components needed better coordination.

EMAZEY taught me that playful design can be strategically powerful in corporate contexts. There's often unnecessary separation between "serious" business communication and engaging, human-centred experiences. By creating something genuinely fun, we communicated EY's capabilities more effectively than any white paper or slide deck could.

The project reinforced the importance of designing for context, not just content. The game's brief interaction time, public setting, and variable player familiarity with games shaped every decision. Designing in isolation and then deploying would have failed. Understanding the environment where the experience would live was fundamental to its success.

I developed deeper appreciation for collaboration between creative and technical roles. The visual designers' sprite concepts became exponentially more valuable when I could provide real-time feedback on technical feasibility and interactive potential. Similarly, my technical implementation improved when I understood the creative intent behind design choices. This iterative, communicative process produces better outcomes than sequential handoffs.

The experience validated that polish matters enormously. The difference between a functional prototype and a refined, professional experience comes down to dozens of small details: animation timing, sound design, loading states, error handling, visual feedback. Individually, these details might seem minor. Collectively, they determine whether something feels amateur or excellent. EMAZEY succeeded because we invested time in polish rather than rushing to "done enough."

Finally, I learned to measure success by behavioural outcomes, not just completion. The game worked not because it ran without errors, but because people chose to engage with it, remembered it afterwards, and associated it with EY's brand values. This perspective shift from technical success to experiential success now guides how I evaluate all design work.