STEALAN EGG

Steal an Egg is a Fortnite adaptation of a game that first found its audience on Roblox. Players steal eggs, hatch pets, earn income from them, buy speed upgrades and keep progressing.

The Fortnite version is a collaboration between Do Big Studios and TeraCreators, built in UEFN.

I led UX/UI and implemented part of the interface myself. Engineering implemented screens too, working from the UI system I built, so my files had to hold up as production material and not only as design reference.

The original interface leans on direct interaction. Shops, index, pets, eggs and a speed toggle each sit on the HUD as something the player presses.

In Fortnite the same systems had to be reachable from a gamepad, within the inputs and technical scope of our UEFN implementation. One input per system was not available, and reassigning controls that Fortnite players already expect would have traded one problem for another.

The work came down to four questions: which inputs we could use, how to group systems behind them, which expected controls to leave alone, and how the player moves between sub-screens once a group is open.

We used the D-pad as the main way into the menus. Each direction opens a group of screens instead of a single screen.

Left and right follow position: the left group sits on the left edge of the HUD and the right group on the right edge. Up follows motion: the inventory opens from the bottom of the screen upward, so the direction matches how the panel moves. The two rules are related, not identical.

Inside a group, every sub-screen has a tab. The player moves focus to the tabs and selects one like any other button. There are no dedicated shortcuts for switching tabs.

The intent was a small set of rules that stay the same across screens and are quick to learn. We have not run usability tests on this model, so that is still an intent and not a result.

Two smaller adaptations follow the same reasoning.

Camera. Within the technical scope of our implementation we did not have the mouse-scroll zoom the Roblox version uses. We approximated it with five discrete zoom steps, on B for gamepad and Q on PC. My part was the adaptation proposal. I did not program the camera system.

Speed. After buying many speed upgrades, a player can move too fast to walk comfortably between the physical shops in the world. The original solves this with a toggle on the HUD. In our adaptation the adjustment lives in Settings, reached from the left group.

That move has a cost. It takes a persistent control off the HUD, and it also puts the option more steps away and makes it less visible.

In internal playtests we saw players turn the setting on inside the safe zone, where the shops are, and off again when they left it. Each change meant navigating Settings again. We added a third state next to Off and On: Safe zone only, which applies the slower speed inside the zone and restores full speed outside it. This was an observation from internal tests; we did not measure its effect.

I built the full UI design system for the project. Its purpose was practical: engineering needed to implement screens from it, and I needed the same base for the screens I implemented myself.

Every shop uses the same window: a header with the title and close button, a content area on a dark panel, and the same card and price-button pattern. Color separates one shop from another. The structure does not change.

I also adapted the iconography and visual elements of the original to this system.

I did not implement the whole interface. These are the parts I built in UEFN myself. Engineering implemented other screens on the same system.