ScubaWord — Progress Record

6Prompt-led directions

8Improvements consolidated

4Open constraints

71Visual checkpoints

Interval

Independent workstreams, one increasingly coherent product.

The covered intervals began with a practical economy question, expanded into interactive travel and shop concepts, and then used direct feedback to simplify the navigation and choose a distinctive Barlow-led visual system. Native implementation followed for postcards, reef approvals, briefings, settings and the dive log. A final design investigation addressed the poster collection's ecological and scale problems, recommending authored habitat scenes and preserving the user's desired living-reef video payoff. The boundary ends at the latest fully completed work in each session.

Direction of travel

How the work evolved.

Each step connects the user’s prompt to the practical change it produced.

Modelled

The gem economy was tested against the desired replay rhythm

Prompt: Map rewards and costs across sites, reefs and stickers, then find a reason for optional gem packs without turning progression into a money churn.

Outcome: The review exposed that later reefs still opened free and existing sticker prices were light against rewards. It established a 450-gem permanent travel proposal, kept normal play meaningful, and treated optional ads and packs as explicit choices rather than interruptions.

Prototyped

Travel and gem spending became an interactive postcard journey

Prompt: Turn the economy into a player-facing flow that explains progress, shortfalls, purchased access and the poster-room gem shop clearly.

Outcome: Sessions 2 and 3 produced a responsive interactive concept and detailed implementation plan. The design separates access from completion, supports earned travel, named visas and a world passport, confirms spending, preserves context, and never auto-spends newly purchased gems.

Implemented

The approved postcard and gem-travel model moved into the native app

Prompt: Carry the approved photographic postcard, reef approval, gem-safe and early-access rules into production-shaped native screens without breaking existing progression.

Outcome: Native postcards now flip deliberately, show predecessor requirements, confirm a 450-gem travel spend, distinguish earned and purchased access, and return players to their original context. Release builds still expose no simulated paid products while live commerce remains unconfigured.

Refined

Direct review simplified the room and established a Barlow-led visual system

Prompt: Keep the equipment room as an interactive place, remove dashboard-like shortcuts and numbering, clarify the site facts action, preserve the real navigation path, and explore typography with more character.

Outcome: The revised direction removed duplicate overlays, retained room panning and object interaction, clarified briefing and result hierarchy, and compared light, dark and expedition treatments. Feedback selected Barlow Condensed Semibold for headings with Barlow for body and controls.

Delivered

Briefings, results, settings and seven reef stamps became one tested native language

Prompt: Apply the approved typography and paper-and-ink direction to surrounding native screens while preserving gameplay, accessibility and reef-specific identity.

Outcome: Four bundled font faces, seven distinct approval stamps, an unnumbered site briefing, inline facts, map credits, the equipment room and a post-treasure dive log were implemented. Focused simulator builds, unit tests, UI journeys and visual captures verified the chosen direction.

Recommended

Poster criticism became an authored habitat collection strategy

Prompt: Fix implausible wildlife scale and placement, keep the wall poster as the collection entrance, and preserve the idea that a completed reef comes alive with video.

Outcome: The audit showed that shared coordinates put animals in sky, open water or unsuitable reef scenes. The recommended design uses reef-specific habitat chapters, owned wildlife only, large collection cards, explicit previews and authored placement. Completing all ten stickers unlocks living habitat clips and a continuous reef film without adding another charge.

What improved

Improvements made.

Evidence-led changes grouped around the product, implementation, design and working process.

Fairer progression economics

Normal play remains a complete route, while a one-time gem travel cost creates a meaningful sink without forced advertising or hidden pressure.

Access is independent from completion

Earned travel, a named visa or a world passport opens only the intended destination and never fabricates completed sites, rewards or sticker ownership.

Safer purchase interactions

Travel spending is confirmed, repeat access cannot charge again, pending and cancelled purchases grant nothing, and buying gems does not automatically spend them.

A clearer adventure path

The equipment room remains a place to explore, while the computer, globe, reef map, briefing and dive retain one understandable route without duplicate dashboard shortcuts.

Distinctive, accessible typography

Barlow and Barlow Condensed now unify reading, controls and display moments while preserving Dynamic Type and leaving board geometry untouched.

Reef-specific approval identity

Seven individually shaped, coloured and rotated approval stamps make each destination feel collected rather than applying one generic badge everywhere.

A more useful end-of-dive moment

The existing result flow now follows the treasure reveal with earned rewards, new availability, an optional collectible, replay and a route back to the reef map.

Believable collection presentation

Habitat chapters, authored scale, substrate contact, occlusion and large collection cards solve problems that a single shared poster coordinate system could not.

Pain points

Friction, constraints and open edges.

Resolved problems are separated from constraints and work that remains open.

Not configured

Live commerce is deliberately still unavailable

The concepts and native flows do not configure store products, prices, accounts, paid entitlements, a wallet backend or transaction reconciliation. Release builds therefore offer no simulated paid access.

Verification boundary

Focused checks are not full device acceptance

Simulator builds and targeted tests passed, but the complete test suite, physical-device performance, Instruments profiling, real purchases and device signing remain outside this interval.

Artwork needed

Habitat scenes require authored compositions

Each wildlife asset still needs an approved habitat, scene-specific placement, scale, lighting and masking. A pilot must prove perspective and ecological fit before all seven reefs are produced.

Prototype first

The living-reef reward needs a representative video pilot

Short habitat clips should match completed still scenes and respect sound, pause and Reduce Motion. One transition should be validated before producing the full film set.

Outputs & proof

What was delivered and verified.

Evidence spans browser prototypes, native simulator captures, focused automated tests, release and debug builds, content audits and responsive checks. Claims remain limited to what those checks established.

Verification record

The commerce prototype exercised postcard flipping, gem travel, pack grants, pending, cancelled and owned states with no script errors or narrow-screen overflow.
The native postcard work passed 74 focused unit tests and six distinct UI journeys, including travel persistence, access approval, cancellation, accessibility settings and sticker purchase.
The Barlow-led native pass passed debug and release builds, 43 focused unit tests and eight UI journeys covering all seven stamps and the surrounding navigation.
The style study checked four screens across three widths, light and dark appearances, embedded fonts, room panning, facts, credits, replay and both typography directions.
The habitat concept passed wide and narrow browser checks, chapter switching, specimen selection, preview, purchase simulation, drawer interaction and scene highlighting.

Key decisions

Optional monetisation must supplement a complete play path; no urgency, forced ad prompt, automatic spend or disguised progression purchase was introduced.

Purchased access and completed gameplay remain separate facts, preserving existing progress and preventing entitlement restoration from inventing rewards.

The equipment room stays an explorable environment and the globe stays the destination selector; proposed shortcuts that obscured those roles were removed.

Barlow Condensed Semibold headings with Barlow body and controls replaced the earlier serif recommendation after direct visual review.

Only owned wildlife lives in habitat scenes; revealed unowned stickers may be previewed explicitly but do not clutter or silently alter the collection.

A completed reef unlocks living media as a collection reward, not as another paid feature, and still imagery remains available for accessibility and offline resilience.

Visual checkpoints

Generated and edited images.

Seventy-one distinct visual checkpoints document the responsive commerce journey, typography and colour comparisons, native postcard and gem-safe implementation, seven reef approval stamps, native briefing and dive-log screens, and three collection directions with habitat interactions. These are generated browser or simulator captures; copied source artwork and the supplied video reference are excluded.

Approved reef stamp isolated for visual checking — **Approval stamp check**A focused check of the distressed reef approval treatment.

Interactive reef postcard front — **Postcard front**The destination-first face before the player turns the postcard over.

Postcard back with incomplete route requirements — **Incomplete route**Completion and gem requirements remain separate and readable.

Postcard back showing a gem shortfall — **Gem shortfall**The exact gap is explained without hiding continued play.

Poster-room gem shop concept — **Gem safe shop**A calm collection-oriented shop entered from the room safe.

Travel postcard at narrow phone width — **Travel at 320 pixels**The travel checklist remains usable at the narrowest test width.

Gem shop at narrow phone width — **Shop at 320 pixels**Pack choices retain clear prices and actions without horizontal overflow.

Travel postcard at standard phone width — **Travel at 360 pixels**The postcard and access choices at a common phone width.

Gem shop at standard phone width — **Shop at 360 pixels**The poster-room purchase presentation at a common phone width.

Travel postcard at wide phone width — **Travel at 736 pixels**The same travel hierarchy scales without changing its meaning.

Gem shop at wide phone width — **Shop at 736 pixels**The gem-safe composition on a wider viewport.

Reef postcard approved through earned travel — **Earned approval**Permanent gem travel produces access without fabricating completion.

Reef postcard approved through a named visa — **Visa approval**A destination-specific entitlement grants only the intended reef.

Reef postcard approved through a world passport — **Passport approval**World access is shown with the same destination-focused outcome.

Approved postcard at narrow width — **Approved at 320 pixels**The large stamp and action remain legible on a narrow screen.

Approved postcard at standard width — **Approved at 360 pixels**The approved state at a common phone width.

Approved postcard at wide width — **Approved at 736 pixels**The approved state scales cleanly to a wide viewport.

Dark instrument-style dive result — **Instrument result**An early dark direction for the end-of-dive hierarchy.

Dark instrument-style dive briefing — **Instrument briefing**An early technical palette retained for comparison.

Light equipment room at narrow width — **Light room, narrow**The room stays unobstructed and explorable.

Light dive briefing at narrow width — **Light briefing, narrow**Place identity and one start action replace numbering.

Light dive result at narrow width — **Light result, narrow**Rewards, unlocks and return navigation fit a narrow screen.

Light typography study at narrow width — **Typography study, narrow**Display and body roles were compared at compact size.

Light equipment room at standard width — **Light room, 360**The standard-width room keeps artwork and object interaction primary.

Light dive briefing at standard width — **Light briefing, 360**A paper-and-ink briefing direction with readable mode details.

Light dive result at standard width — **Light result, 360**The dive log balances reward, discovery and next action.

Light typography study at standard width — **Typography study, 360**The approved and alternate display voices shown side by side.

Light equipment room at wide width — **Light room, wide**The panoramic interaction remains the room's organising idea.

Light dive briefing at wide width — **Light briefing, wide**The briefing hierarchy remains stable on a wider viewport.

Light dive result at wide width — **Light result, wide**The result preserves one clear return route and optional replay.

Light typography study at wide width — **Typography study, wide**Longer copy and board candidates tested at wider scale.

Dark equipment room at narrow width — **Dark room, narrow**A dark surrounding treatment for the same room interaction.

Dark dive briefing at narrow width — **Dark briefing, narrow**The underwater palette retained legibility at narrow width.

Dark dive result at narrow width — **Dark result, narrow**A darker comparison for the completion moment.

Dark typography study at narrow width — **Dark type study, narrow**Font roles tested against a deep teal surface.

Dark equipment room at standard width — **Dark room, 360**The dark room treatment at standard phone size.

Dark dive briefing at standard width — **Dark briefing, 360**The alternative briefing palette at standard width.

Dark dive result at standard width — **Dark result, 360**The alternative dive-log treatment at standard width.

Dark typography study at standard width — **Dark type study, 360**Typography comparison on the darker surface.

Dark equipment room at wide width — **Dark room, wide**The panoramic room under the alternative dark treatment.

Dark dive briefing at wide width — **Dark briefing, wide**A wide-layout check of the dark briefing.

Dark dive result at wide width — **Dark result, wide**A wide-layout check of the dark completion flow.

Dark typography study at wide width — **Dark type study, wide**Display and reading styles compared at wide scale.

Adventure serif briefing typography option — **Adventure type direction**The warmer serif proposal retained as design history.

Condensed expedition briefing typography option — **Expedition type direction**The Barlow Condensed direction that informed the approved native choice.

Instrument-style briefing option — **Instrument type direction**A practical dark comparison used during selection.

Native approved reef visa screen — **Native visa approval**The native postcard after paid access approval.

Native gem safe screen — **Native gem safe**The release-shaped shop surface with unavailable live products.

Native photographic reef postcard front — **Native postcard front**The approved navy native travel entry.

Native postcard with large accessibility text — **Accessible postcard**Large text and reduced-motion behavior retained a usable layout.

Mesoamerican Barrier Reef approval stamp — **Mesoamerican stamp**A rectangular destination-specific native approval mark.

Pacific Islands approval stamp — **Pacific Islands stamp**A circular destination-specific native approval mark.

Indian Ocean approval stamp — **Indian Ocean stamp**A diamond-shaped destination-specific native approval mark.

Red Sea approval stamp — **Red Sea stamp**A red ticket-shaped destination-specific native approval mark.

Caribbean approval stamp — **Caribbean stamp**A purple banner-shaped destination-specific native approval mark.

Great Barrier Reef approval stamp — **Great Barrier Reef stamp**A blue badge-shaped destination-specific native approval mark.

Coral Triangle approval stamp — **Coral Triangle stamp**A green oval destination-specific native approval mark.

Native briefing with site facts expanded — **Inline site facts**About this dive site expands in place without inventing another route.

Native Barlow dive briefing — **Native dive briefing**Unnumbered place identity, real map, live modes and one start action.

Native settings sheet with map credits — **Map credits**Required map attribution remains reachable without crowding the briefing.

Native equipment room with Barlow controls — **Native equipment room**The panorama and object interaction remain primary.

Native post-dive log — **Native dive log**Actual rewards, new availability and return navigation follow the treasure reveal.

Native treasure chest reveal — **Treasure reveal**The established reveal remains before the optional dive log.

Habitat chapter collection concept — **Habitat scenes**The recommended direction places owned wildlife in curated environments.

Field journal collection concept — **Field journal**An alternative prioritising large species art, facts and a habitat window.

Refined poster collection concept — **Refined poster**The smallest-change alternative keeps a quieter poster and collection drawer.

Sand flats habitat chapter on a phone — **Sand flats chapter**A chapter gives species a more credible substrate and scale.

Sticker preview and purchase in habitat — **Habitat preview**A revealed unowned animal is previewed explicitly before any spend.

Collection drawer with owned and locked wildlife — **Collection drawer**Large cards keep identity, ownership and requirements legible.

Shore habitat chapter on a phone — **Shore chapter**A coastal chapter demonstrates why habitat-specific poses and art are needed.

Full habitat collection concept at 360 pixels — **Collection at 360 pixels**The recommended collection flow remains usable on a narrow phone.

Next moves & open questions

Current position.

The economy principles, postcard travel, gem-safe access, Barlow visual system, seven reef approvals, site briefing and dive log are now represented in tested native work. The collection redesign is a validated design direction rather than app code. Live commerce, authored habitat art, living-reef video and full physical-device acceptance remain the next major boundaries.

Configure commerce only with production safeguardsAdd real product configuration, verified entitlement provenance, idempotent gem grants and travel spending, restoration and refund behavior before exposing paid actions.
Pilot one authored habitatChoose a representative scene and wildlife set, then validate placement, scale, lighting, occlusion, accessibility and phone crops before expanding across every reef.
Prototype the still-to-living transitionProduce one short habitat clip matched to its completed still scene and test explicit playback, pause, sound and Reduce Motion behavior.
Run wider acceptance evidenceComplete the broader regression suite and profile the full postcard, poster and seven-reef journey on supported physical devices.