Idle Miner Tycoon is a highly successful free-to-play mobile game that excels in scale, content depth, and long-term player engagement. But as complexity grows, so does the density of its interface.
In this case study, I explore how focused design refinements and behavior-based UX approaches can help streamline the player experience, support retention, and preserve clarity without sacrificing game depth or monetization.
A redesigned interface can change how players experience a game. In this animation, I showcase a cleaner, more structured UI concept for Idle Miner Tycoon—focusing on clarity, usability, and cohesion without disrupting gameplay. This is the foundation on which the case study builds.
In the original top bar, action buttons such as menu, community, alerts, and info appear directly below the currencies—tightly packed, without clear grouping or spatial separation. This layout creates visual tension, lacks hierarchy, and causes the interface to feel dense and crowded, especially as it overlays gameplay space.
In the redesigned version, I introduced a dedicated collapsible container for these secondary actions. By separating them into their own blue UI block with increased padding and visual spacing, the interface becomes cleaner and more structured. A toggle allows users to hide or reveal these elements, increasing screen space when not needed and enhancing immersion.Notably, the “Ruby Mine” label in the center presumably used to switch mines remains visible in both states, as it serves a more critical gameplay function.
This design treats secondary actions as non-critical but accessible—giving players more control and developers flexibility in balancing functionality with visual focus.
In the original version of Idle Miner Tycoon, several coin indicators and text values appear as floating elements above mining containers. While readable, these detached elements contribute to a sense of visual clutter and lack structural integration with the surrounding game world.
To improve clarity and immersion, I explored a concept where coin values and icons are visually embedded into the respective containers. In this example, the floating coin icon and value are repositioned into the box itself, turning the visual data into a part of the interface component rather than an overlay.
This creates a stronger link between feedback and function, reduces visual fragmentation, and adds a layer of polish to the interface.
Optional enhancement:
This structural embedding could be further enriched by micro-interactions—such as animated fill levels or smooth transitions as coins accumulate—providing psychological reward feedback and reinforcing the player's sense of progress.
This design principle could be extended across other floating indicators in the game, helping Idle Miner achieve a more consistent, readable, and emotionally satisfying UI experience.
In the original interface, bottom bar buttons extended beyond the blue background container and frequently overlapped with gameplay UI—especially level indicators in the lower game layers. This caused visual collisions and made it unclear where interface ended and gameplay began.
In the redesigned version, I increased the height of the bottom bar container and realigned the navigation icons to sit fully within the UI frame. This created clear separation between system-level interaction and in-game interaction zones. The result is reduced visual clutter, better finger-target spacing, and a more structured screen hierarchy.
On the left side of the screen, the original layout included several floating event buttons. While these are important for monetization and engagement, they overlapped gameplay-critical zones—interfering with player actions and reducing UI readability.
My redesign moves these event icons into a collapsible slide-out drawer, anchored to the bottom bar. Players can expand or collapse the drawer as needed, preserving access without disrupting gameplay. For retention or monetization logic, the drawer could default to open, but always remains user-controlled.
In the current version of Idle Miner Tycoon, players are introduced to the spin wheel mechanic within the first few minutes of gameplay. However, the very first spin presented as a core game element requires the user to watch an ad before it can be activated.
From a behavioral design perspective, this is a missed opportunity. The player has no attachment to the mechanic yet, and the sudden friction of an ad gate may create a sense of interruption, not reward.
Higher first-session retention, stronger emotional connection to the reward loop, and increased long-term engagement with the spin mechanic.
Currently, new players start with zero premium currency (Super Cash), which limits their ability to explore the in-game shop or use any premium mechanics from the start.
This limits one of the most powerful UX tools in mobile F2P design: the Endowment Effect. By not giving the player something to “spend,” the game skips a key step in fostering emotional ownership and transactional familiarity.
Increased shop familiarity, higher conversion potential, and stronger emotional engagement in the first session.
Together, these adjustments reinforce player trust, reduce initial friction, and build positive habits during the critical early phase of gameplay. By balancing monetization timing with behavioral design, Idle Miner Tycoon could improve first-session retention and deepen player attachment.
