Grow with the Flow

Interactive Game Design

Key Insights

The basics of mental health aren't overly complicated, such as checking in with yourself, building a supportive environment, and knowing when something's off. But they're usually packaged as clinical advice or self-help content in a format that people don't fully engage with.

Concept

Grow with the Flow is a 16-bit plant care game that doubles as a gamified mental health resource. You water your plant, give it sunlight, check its soil, and more. After each plant care screen, a companion screen maps that same action to a mental health habit: watering becomes nourishing yourself with sleep and food, sunlight becomes surrounding yourself with positive people, making you learn by doing.

Game screen showing a tool selection menu — watering can is selected, actively watering the plant

Mental health game screen prompting the player to pop thought bubbles containing negative thoughts

Visual Design

My team and I illustrated a complete 16-bit pixel art system from scratch, including plants, environment elements, and interactive components like buttons. I created the accompanying Style Guide and Mood Board, and animated various elements in Procreate, two of which are featured below.

Grow with the Flow team style guide — typography, color palette, layout principles, icon set, and button interaction states

Mood board showing the game interface with side-by-side plant care and mental health screens, plus color swatches

Flows

We sketched out the full game loop before moving to Figma. Every step follows a three-part structure: an interactive plant care screen, a short reminder card that bridges the metaphor, and then an interactive mental health screen with its own game mechanic.

Hand-drawn wireframe of the closing polaroid scene — camera hover state and flash expansion animation

Hand-drawn wireframe of the plant wilting recovery flow — giving plant food and reminder notification

Design Decisions

Both sides of the metaphor are interactive, which ensures that mental health screens have their own mechanics that mirror what you just did for your plant.
Each mental health interaction matches its plant care counterpart thematically and conceptually.
The player makes multiple decisions throughout their journey, such as which tool to use at various stages in the plant's life based on its current needs, which make the experience feel gamified rather than instructional.

Outcome and Next Steps

The full game loop is playable as an interactive Figma prototype with custom illustrations, animations, and complete plant care and mental health flows. Next steps include building out a responsive game and playtesting with a broader audience.