Once we decided on the premise and setting, I knew the main menu should be a computer desktop. I was primarily working on the UI scripting and layout, along with working on gameplay programming and puzzle design. Our lead artist created all the final UI art.

I created the mockup above with the layout and aesthetic from the team and me. Windows 95 and the 90s were a great point of reference for our vibe and visuals. The background seen above was a default Windows 95 background.

I continued concepting the main menu layout and landed on a more traditional desktop layout. It’s common for important desktop icons to be present on the left side of the screen, so I adopted this layout for our main icons.

A few things changed (besides the incredible art) for the main menu layout. Our lead artist had created a bold and playful test for demoing purposes. This led me to utilize the new playful text for our current main menu iteration. It breaks from computer desktop icon norms, but we did not want to limit our creative freedom too much.

To further enhance the desktop experience, I created a script that could be attached to any 2D object, allowing the player to move it via the mouse.