A modern front end for a proven game.
Simon, this page sets out how I would run the project: the mission as I understand it, the process, the budget, and the questions that will sharpen the numbers. Everything is priced as an outcome, not as hours. Use the controls in Scope & Budget to shape the estimate; the running total updates as you go.
This quote was built for this project alone. The pricing reflects its specific nature, the tight time constraints, and our long-standing personal relationship, so it should not be read as a standard rate. This estimate expires 11 July.
Bring a classic back to life, and prove people will pay for it.
Ship a beta that is about 98% faithful to the original game, wrapped in a modern, fast, well-designed interface. Run commercial validation with real players and real subscriptions. Use that proof to secure backing, then grow it into a fully original product.
My role: make the beta worth paying for
I design the whole product and, if we choose to, build the front end too. Concretely, that removes the two things in the way:
- A design system.Buttons, headers, components and a visual language that let every page of the beta be finished quickly and consistently. It is the first thing I deliver, because it is the thing blocking you.
- A front end that feels like a product, not a port.Fast, responsive, playable on a phone, and polished enough that beta testers tell their alliance about it.
What we are building, and why it deserves it
I have played the original and researched it properly: the systems, the community, the mobile app, and the fan-built tools around it. At its heart it is a real-time, slow-burn empire game. Thousands of players share a persistent universe, everything runs on real-world timers, and things happen while you sleep. That tension is why people have played it for 20 years.
Crucially, it is not a graphics-heavy game. It is a data-dense management interface: dashboards, upgrade lists, queues, reports, a galaxy map. The entire product surface is UI. That is exactly what a design system and a modern web stack are built for.
Why this is worth doing
The love for this game has outlived its interface. The pain points are real, well documented, and all fixable with design:
- The current UI is slow, unresponsive and stuck in another era
- There is no real mobile experience; the official app is rated 2.4 out of 5
- New players bounce off an opaque first hour
- Veterans depend on fan-built browser tools for basics the game should do itself
A loyal community, clear pain, and a backend already 98% ported. Bringing this back to life properly would be genuinely great work, and that is the spirit I would bring to it.
The feature surface, top-level
This map is deliberately top-level. If we go forward, the planning phase includes writing user stories for every flow and confirming them together before screens are designed.
| Area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Economy | Three primary resources plus energy; mines, storage and infrastructure; live-ticking counters; upgrade queues |
| Species system | Four playable species, each with 12 buildings and 18 technologies, population and food mechanics, three unlock tiers |
| Research | Account-wide tech tree of around 16 technologies gating ships, drives, weapons, espionage |
| Military | Shipyard with around 17 ship types, static defences, batch construction with queues |
| Fleet operations | The most complex flow: select ships, set target and speed, choose mission. Live fleet tracking and recall |
| Galaxy | Browsable universe map with per-row actions, debris fields, moons, player-status flags |
| Intel & combat | Espionage reports, combat reports, expedition results. A heavy-volume message centre |
| Social | Alliances with ranks and joint attacks, rankings, buddy lists, player search |
| Progression | Player classes, officer buffs, rewards and daily tasks, seasonal events |
| Commerce | Shop and subscription purchases, merchant and marketplace trading |
| Supporting | Onboarding, auth, settings, help, game rules, legal pages, landing page, email and push notifications |
Two audiences, one interface
Veterans are optimisers. They calculate payback periods on mines, save their fleets every night, and time attacks to the second. They need density, exact numbers and speed. Newcomers bounce off the genre's opaque early game. The design serves both through progressive disclosure: features unlock in tiers and the interface teaches as it unlocks.
One plan, reviewed together every week
Each step lists what lands in that week's catch-up, so you always know what you are looking at and what decision I need from you.
1Kickoff and discovery
Backend walkthrough, review of the current UI, user stories written and confirmed, beta cut-lines, success metrics for validation.
2Mood boards and opportunities
Visual exploration across two or three directions to identify where the brand can go and where the product can stand out. This sets up the brand work.
3Brand direction
An original identity: logo direction, palette, typography, iconography, and the start of the naming glossary for your world.
4Design system
Tokens and core components with motion, interaction and feedback states: buttons, navigation, timers, resource counters, upgrade cards, tables, queues, reports, alerts.
5Core screens
The full game loop designed at desktop and mobile widths.
6Meta screens and close-out
Commerce, alliance, rankings, settings, onboarding and supporting pages.
7Build sprints, if we build together
The front end goes up on a live URL early and stays there.
The weekly catch-up. 30 to 45 minutes, same slot each week. I bring the week's work and a short list of decisions I need from you. We agree next week's targets before we hang up. Between calls you get one written update, and I only interrupt for genuine blockers.
How the calendar actually runs
I work in an agile way, so build does not wait for design to finish. Development starts around 60% of the way through the design, and the two run in parallel from there. The bars below update with the pace you set in Scope & Budget, and the total is the real calendar time to handover, not the two phases added up.
Estimated top-level scope options
Pick a package, tick what you want, and set the pace in the estimate panel. The total follows you as you go. None of it is final: it is a starting point we shape together, and you get one consolidated update per week, in the same slot as our calls, to keep it honest.
- Discovery and product definition
- User stories for every flow, confirmed together
- Edge case discovery
- Early prototyping
- Mood boards and brand direction
- Original identity: logo, colour, type, iconography
- Naming glossary for the new world
- Design system incl. motion, interaction and feedback
- 27 desktop screens estimated
- 35+ mobile adaptations estimated
- Onboarding flow
- Clickable prototype of the core loop
- Motion and animation specs
- Developer handover documentation
- Design QA while your developer builds
- Everything in the Full Design Suite
- Discount−£1,875
- App shell, auth and account flows
- Design system implemented in code
- Core game loop screens, fully built
- Subscription and checkout flow, fully built
- Server state, caching and data layer patterns
- Error, loading and empty states for everything I build
- Assembly guide for the remaining screens
- Design QA while you build the rest
- Everything in the Full Design Suite
- Discount−£1,875
- App shell, auth and account flows
- Design system implemented in code
- Live resource bar, timers and queues
- Server state, caching and data layer
- Error, loading and empty states
- Onboarding
- Economy, species and research
- Shipyard, defence and military
- Fleet dispatch, movements and recall
- Galaxy view
- Messages, combat and espionage reports
- Alliance suite
- Marketplace and trading
- Rewards, officers and rankings
- Subscription and checkout
- Settings and account management
- Typed, componentised codebase you can take over
- Linting, formatting and project conventions
- Automated tests on the critical flows
- View and page transitions
- Micro-interactions and feedback on every action
- Build-complete and attack-alarm moments
- Page titles, meta and favicons
- In-app notifications and toasts
- Form validation and friendly error messages
- 404, 500 and maintenance pages
- Accessibility: contrast, focus and keyboard
- Legal pages wired in
This build estimate is based on what I could quickly find and will likely need refining, over a call or with feedback on what is actually required. We can agree equivalent efforts and outcomes on a weekly basis; with the initial sign-off we share a global understanding that what is laid out here is close to the expected outcome.
The front end I build usually runs on dummy endpoints, which you can help provide. Wiring in the real APIs is not included in this scope, but it is something we can agree on.
Add-ons
Things you will probably ask
Is the estimate fixed?
No. It is a starting point. If the shape or the numbers are not right, we adjust them together before anything is signed.
Are the timelines guaranteed?
Timelines are estimates and will adjust based on our weekly progress; that is what the weekly catch-up is for. The outcomes are what I guarantee: the deliverables in your selected package, done properly.
Who owns the work?
You do. Design files, code, assets: all of it is yours.
Is VAT added?
No. Premonday Ltd clients are largely international, so no VAT is charged.
Can we work on a retainer instead?
Yes. Rather than a fixed scope, we can run this as a monthly retainer: $10k per month for design, or $15k per month including the build. At that steadier cadence, design would take up to 12 weeks, and design and build together would take up to 18 to 22 weeks. Same outcomes, spread over a longer, calmer runway.
When can you start?
Within one to two weeks of agreeing.
What happens after handover
- If something is wrong, I fix it at my own cost.If a screen was designed wrong, or something I built was implemented wrong and it gets spotted later, I come back and make it right. No invoice, no debate. That is included in every package.
- A month of cover after each phase.For a month after a phase closes, questions get answered and small corrections get handled at no cost. Beyond that we agree what ongoing support should look like, once the beta tells us what players actually want.
- I am building for the relationship, not the invoice.If we go forward, I want this to be the start of working together properly: through validation, through the divergence phase, and beyond. I want this to succeed and I will put the energy in accordingly.
Ideas worth considering
These came out of playing the game and researching its community. None are commitments and none are in the estimate. Some fit the beta, most fit what comes after validation. Lean on me for this kind of thinking whenever you want it; it is part of what you are hiring.
A genuinely good mobile experienceThe original's mobile app is rated 2.4 out of 5. An installable web app with push notifications for attacks, finished builds and returning fleets is the retention lever for a timer game, with no app store fees or review queues.
Onboarding that keeps newcomersA guided first hour: build this, research that, send your first fleet, with rewards as the spine. It directly moves the retention numbers investors ask about.
The fan-tool ecosystem, built inCombat simulator, raid profitability preview, empire dashboard, and a "time until you can afford this" line on every upgrade. The community has wanted these natively for a decade.
Play it through an AI agentExpose game actions through a clean interface so the game can be played, legitimately, by AI assistants. A novel marketing hook, free automated testing of every flow, and a memorable demo for technical investors. It pairs with the anti-bot question: one door, properly guarded, beats a hundred scrapers.
In-game chatAlliance chat, local chat, direct messages. The original outsources its social life to Discord. Pulling it in-game deepens engagement, and it ships with moderation tools from day one.
A richer reward loopDaily streaks, weekly tasks, seasonal reward tracks, achievements. A first-class system instead of the original's bolted-on events tab, built over backend actions that already exist.
A living interfaceReal-time fleet events, ticking resources, satisfying build-complete moments. Game feel in a management UI is micro-interaction polish, and it reads as quality far beyond its cost.
Fair play as a brand positionThe original community's loudest complaint is pay-to-win creep. A subscription-led model, which is your instinct anyway, is a real differentiator worth stating loudly in the brand.
An identity that is entirely yours
The brand phase produces an original, name-ready identity and a full naming glossary: every resource, building, ship and mechanic renamed into your world. To aim that work correctly, I need the world pinned down.
Is this still a space setting, or a different environment entirely?
Assumption: space, consistent with the original's mechanics. Planets, fleets and galaxies map cleanly.
When is it set, and what is the tone?
Near-future or far-future. Gritty, clean, or retro.
Assumption: far-future, clean dark sci-fi with an instrument-panel feel.
How much lore already exists?
Factions, history, names, a working title.
Assumption: light lore, name in progress.
Do you want my input on the world itself?
I name the interface terminology within your world as standard. If you want help creating the lore and the full concept of the game, that is the world and lore concepting add-on in Scope & Budget, and it runs alongside the brand so the brand is built on it.
Assumption: you own the world, I name the interface.
What I need to know, and what I will assume until told
Nothing here blocks the start. Each question ships with the assumption I will work from, so we lose no time.
What exists in the backend?
A summary of features covered, API documentation, how real-time events like attacks and fleet arrivals are exposed, how auth works, and whether payments are integrated. This is the one answer that can move the build price.
Assumption: REST plus some real-time channel, token auth, no payments yet.
Can I get access to the current UI and a test account?
Useful as an API reference even though we replace it.
Assumption: reference only; the new design replaces it fully.
Which 2% of the beta differs from the original?
Assumption: naming and theme plus minor balance. Feature parity otherwise.
How does it make money?
You mentioned subscriptions. Subscription, premium currency and hybrid models need different screens, so this shapes the whole commerce design.
Assumption: subscription-led, payments live in the beta through Stripe, since paid conversion is the validation metric.
Which platforms for the beta?
Assumption: responsive web plus an installable mobile web app. Native store apps wait until after validation.
Who is the beta audience, and how big?
Assumption: veterans of the original first, 100 to 1,000 testers, organised through your community manager on Discord.
How fast is fast?
You want this done quickly. Give me the date you are working toward and I will build the plan backwards from it.
Assumption: validation-ready in three to four months.
Which languages at launch?
Assumption: English only, built so translation is cheap later.
Do you need an admin panel?
User lookup, bans, universe configuration, event triggers.
Assumption: the backend has something minimal; a designed admin UI is an add-on if wanted.
What is the stance on bots and automation?
Worth deciding together with the agent idea above. One sanctioned door beats an arms race.
Assumption: needed eventually, not beta-blocking.
Do any game assets exist?
Ships, buildings, icons, species art.
Assumption: nothing production-ready; the included asset pack covers it.
Which legal entity runs the game?
It drives the terms, privacy and billing pages.
Assumption: UK or EU entity, GDPR applies. I design the legal surface, your counsel supplies the words.
The game's language, decoded
Shared vocabulary for our conversations. Every one of these gets renamed into your world during the brand phase.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Universe | A server instance with its own speed and rules; players compete within one universe |
| Resources | Three primary materials (common, rare, fuel-grade) that fund everything; the fuel resource doubles as the trade standard |
| Energy | A production gate, generated rather than stockpiled; mines throttle without it |
| Premium currency | Paid currency for buffs and time-savers in the original; may be replaced by our subscription model |
| Species system | Four playable species, each with its own buildings, technologies, population economy and three unlock tiers |
| Fleet save | The veteran nightly ritual of sending the whole fleet on a slow mission so it cannot be destroyed overnight; a flow that must be fast |
| Expedition | Exploration missions returning resources, ships, items, or losses |
| Reports | Espionage and combat result documents that drive decisions; effectively the game's content feed |
| Debris field | Harvestable wreckage left by battles; the economics behind profitable raiding |
| Joint attacks | Coordinated multi-player strikes landing in the same second |
| Officers | Rented account-wide buffs: production, fleet slots, research speed |
| Classes | Account archetypes (miner, fleeter, explorer) with matching perks and ships |
| Newcomer shield | Rank-gated attack protection for new players, plus honour rules against farming the weak |
| Vacation mode | A safe-pause state for accounts |
| Moon layer | Moons formed by large battles, hosting sensor and teleport mechanics |
From here to kickoff
- You.Send over the backend summary and answers to whichever questions are easy. The assumptions cover the rest.
- Us.Next week's call: we walk this page, pick a package, set the pace and agree a start date.
- Me.Agreement and milestone schedule within 48 hours of that call. Design system in your hands within two weeks of kickoff.