Glow Formula

main character
beauty room
gym
clothes store

Inspiration

Glow Formula was inspired by my experience creating family-friendly character games and puzzle games for mobile and Meta Quest, including the Baby Adopter and Formula game series. I wanted to design a cozy simulation game that focuses on positive daily progress, self-expression, room improvement, and short-session play.

The idea came from combining character customization, daily routines, location upgrades, collectible discovery, and mini-games into one approachable experience. The goal is to create a game where the player feels visible progress after every session: the character looks better, the rooms improve, new items unlock, and the daily world becomes more complete.

What it does

Glow Formula is a cozy simulation and management game where the player guides a young woman through daily routines, style choices, room upgrades, mini-games, and hidden collectible discoveries.

The core loop is simple and satisfying: choose an activity, complete a short interaction or mini-game, earn coins, and reinvest those coins into clothing, hairstyles, furniture, location upgrades. The player starts with a small daily world and gradually unlocks more routines, location items, and visual changes.

The game is family-friendly and non-romantic. It is about daily life, customization, visible growth, and positive progression.

How we built it

I focused on defining the core loop, progression systems, player journey, visual direction, and production plan before building the final game.

The design is centered around a repeatable invest-harvest-upgrade loop. The player invests time into daily activities, earns coins, and spends them on improvements that make the world feel more alive. Each system supports the same goal: giving the player a reason to return, customize, upgrade, and discover more.

The visual direction was built around a friendly main character, cozy everyday locations, readable mobile UI, and a warm polished style, with 3D character presentation and animations included as a core part of the game experience.

All game graphics are human created. The AI was not used in creating visuals.

Challenges we ran into

The main design challenge was making the game feel more meaningful than a simple dress-up or room-decorating game. To solve that, Glow Formula connects customization to daily routine progression. Outfits, rooms, mini-games, hidden collectibles, and upgrades are not separate features; they all feed into the player’s sense of progress.

Another challenge was scope. A lifestyle simulation can easily become too broad. I limited the first version to one main character, a small number of locations, a clear reward economy, a few short mini-games, and a simple collectible system.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am proud of creating a concept that feels relatable, cozy and approachable while still having a real management loop. Glow Formula gives the player visible progress through character style, room upgrades, location unlocks, daily goals, collectible rewards, and 3D animated character moments.

I am also proud of the visual direction. The main character, rooms, outfits, hairstyles, and animations are designed to work together as one coherent experience. The 3D character viewer is part of the reward system because players can see unlocked 3D animations come to life.

Most importantly, the design is realistic to build. The first version can prove the main loop with one character, several locations, a clear upgrade system, hidden collectibles, mini-games, and 3D animations without requiring a huge amount of content on day one.

What we learned

This project reinforced that a strong simulation game needs more than a list of features. The systems must connect. Rewards need a clear purpose, upgrades need to change what the player sees or can do, and the first session must quickly show why the player should come back.

A relaxing game still does need goals, pacing, discovery, and progression. Glow Formula is designed around that balance: positivity, calm tone, clear choices, visible improvement, and steady forward movement.

What's next for Glow Formula

Next, I would build the first playable version with one main character, several locations, a daily planner, outfit and hairstyle customization, room upgrades, hidden collectibles, mini-games, and a 3D character viewer with animations.

After that, I would expand the game with more locations, more clothing and hairstyles, more room items, seasonal collectibles, additional mini-games, and more character animations.

For Meta Horizon, Glow Formula is designed to make strong use of 3D character presentation and 3D animations from the start, so the player can see unlocked outfits, hairstyles and daily routine animations in a more immersive way.