Game design ate UI animation ???

Welcome back.

And while I see both sides, in hindsight this will seem like a very 2025 argument punctuating the end of the 2-dimensional design stack.

From research to production, I'm having convos with design tool companies, and everyone is thinking about how to support new ways of working.

Even motion design tools.

—Tommy (@designertom)

the wireframe

• Timeline brain vs. system brain
• The game design secret to learn from
• Design tools using it now

the end of timeline thinking

Remember video editing?

You put clips on a timeline, one after another. That's how motion design has worked forever - in After Effects, Flash, even newer tools like Lottie.

Want a button to do something when clicked? You'd make one timeline for the click, another for hover, another for loading... suddenly you've got 10 different animations to manage.

Games figured out a smarter way.

Instead of separate timelines, they use something called state machines. Think of it like a flowchart: if the player is standing still, play the "idle" animation. If they press jump, switch to "jumping". If they're falling, switch to "falling".

The animation follows what's actually happening, not the other way around.

Now that same logic is coming to product design.

runtime-first design

Let's get specific.

Take Instagram's like button that bursts into hearts when you double-tap.

The old way of building this:

1. Make a pretty heart animation in After Effects
2. Export it as a video or Lottie file
3. Hand it to developers who have to figure out: When to play the animationWhat happens if you tap againWhat if the network is slowWhat if the like failsHow to prevent spam tapsWhen to show loadingHow to handle errors

The new way with tools like Rive:

1. Design a flowchart of what happens when: Sitting there? Show normal heartSingle tap? Quick pump animationDouble tap? Burst into particlesWaiting? Subtle pulseError? Quick shake and reset
2. Ship one file that handles all of that

Instead of just making pretty animations, you're designing how something actually behaves.

The visuals and logic are finally speaking the same language.

Hear that? That's the sound of technical barriers breaking into pieces.

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why games got there first

Game designers solved this years ago because they had to. When you're making Mario, you can't have separate animations for every possible thing the player might do. You need a system that can handle anything.

So they built tools where:

• The game's logic controls which animation plays
• Everything happens instantly - no waiting for videos to load
• One animation smoothly flows into the next
• It all runs perfectly even on old phones

Sound familiar? That's exactly what modern apps need.

What changed? Two things:

1. Apps got more game-likeEverything's interactive nowUsers expect instant feedbackPhones need to handle complex animationsBad performance kills engagement
2. Tools got smarterThey use your phone's graphics chip (like games do)Designers can build logic visually (no coding)Developers get files they can actually use

Motion design is starting to feel a lot more like game design. And that's pretty rad in the name of not-boring software.

the future is run-time first

The best motion designers I know are learning from games:

• Think in systems, not sequences
• Design for edge cases
• Care about performance
• Build for interaction

Tools are following suit:

• Rive brings state machines to UI
• Spline adds game-like 3D to web
• Jitter makes timeline thinking optional

What's next? My prediction:

• More game concepts in UI tools
• Runtime-first becomes standard
• Motion becomes logic-aware
• Design tools embrace state machines

education spotlight

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the bottom line

Stop thinking in timelines. Start thinking in systems.

Your users don't care about pretty animations, not really. They care about feedback, responsiveness, and feeling in control.

That's what game designers have known all along.

See you next week,

Tommy

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