Create fantastical creatures

Creature Garden App

Product design

Creature Garden is Tinybop’s 6th app of the Digital Toys series. It is an open-ended construction kit that gives kids hundreds of parts to create and play with. Kids can race their creatures through obstacle courses, see if they will (or won’t!) walk, swim, and fly, and cross creatures to make new breeds.

The app is available for iOS on the App Store and in 50+ languages.

App trailer 

Tinybop branded opening animation

Users can create and collect all types of creatures

Users start with a body as a base and can build and test their creatures

Creatures can be pinned against each other in races

Creatures can play, interact, and even make babies in the open play area

Different limbs, pieces, and features a user can choose from

Mini race machines that test for locomotion on land, air, and in water

Interactive play items and race obstacles

Breeding creatures produces an egg that hatches one with shared traits from its parent

Race entries and medals

Air racing

Land race

Water race

Inspiration & Reference Imagery

Inspiration drawn from curiosity cabinets and illustrator Natasha Durley’s style

Process

UI guidelines

Wireframes

Alternative App Store icons

Sketches

Results and Reactions

Average session of time spent in the app is at 18 minutes on initial launch, higher than 89% of Tinybop apps.

Featured on the App Store multiple times at time of launch and beyond, The Creature Garden has been mentioned by other outlets and materials, both printed and digital.

Contributions

Art & Creative Direction, User Interface Design, User Experience, Marketing

Launched

Tinybop, 2018

Collaborators

Leah Feuer and Diva Hurtado · Natasha Durley, Illustration · Holly Graham and Jessie Sattler, Technical Art · Yin Liu,  Robert Blackwood, Unity Engineering  · Brian Jacobs, Sound Design · Beckie Choe, Motion, Illustration & Design

Press & Mentions

Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Wired, Designweek, School Library Journal