RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE SUPERSTAR

TOOT AND BOOT CASE STUDY

Role: Lead UX Designer

Skills Used: Management, User Research, Market Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Implementation, AB Testing, Live Ops

RuPaul’s Drag Race Superstar is an award winning mobile game developed in 2020. The game features the contestants and stars of Hit Show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The game primarily features a Challenge gameplay, where player’s can battle against the AI in fashion challenges, and an Idle component where players can upgrade their workstations in order to earn more “Werk”. Live Ops in the game is still ongoing.

Challenge

Players lacked meaningful social interaction while completing challenges.

As the game evolved, players consistently expressed a desire for richer social features beyond dressing up and battling AI, seeking stronger community connections and competitive experiences.

Introduction

I was brought on at the inception of the Toot and Boot feature, which aimed to introduce a community-driven challenge system aligned with our existing gameplay. Inspired by the “Toot and Boot” segment from RuPaul’s Drag Race, where two Queens critique contestant’s looks, the feature allowed players to vote on each other's outfits. As the UX Designer, I led the end-to-end design of the Toot and Boot experience: user flows, wireframes, UI design, playtesting, iteration, and engineering handoff.

Milestone 1 - Defining the Feature

During this milestone I was tasked with creating a cohesive set of screens and user flows for the Toot and Boot Challenge. The goal was to support the full player journey, including:

  1. Enter a Toot and Boot Challenge

  2. Dress up their Queen (Player Avatar) to fit the theme of the challenge.

  3. Submit their outfit.

  4. Vote on other Queen’s outfits based on the theme of the challenge.

  5. An area where the player could purchase unique clothing pieces with the currency they acquire from completing the Challenges.

  6. An area where the player could collect prizes from meeting voting requirements.

  7. The visual design needed to distinguish the feature from other in-game challenges while maintaining consistency with the overall Toot and Boot theme.

Unified Wardrobe Experience

To ensure a consistent user experience, I designed the entry into Toot and Boot to mirror the existing Dress Up Challenges, since both features were accessed from the same area on the Home Screen.

Existing Wardrobe in Game

Proposed Updated Toot and Boot Wardrobe

One Hub, Many Actions

To streamline navigation and reduce cognitive load, I introduced a centralized Hub where players could access the store, vote, and collect rewards. Rather than dropping players directly into the voting screen after dressing up, which felt abrupt, I used the Hub as a grounding point to help orient players and give them control over their next action.

Proposed Toot and Boot Hub

Swipe to Vote

For the voting, I designed a swipe-based voting UI, leveraging familiar mobile gestures for intuitive interaction. This introduced a new mechanic to the game while keeping the experience intuitive. Since voting was a new feature, I wanted to ground it in a behavior that many users already associate with decision-making, especially those familiar with dating apps. This approach helped reduce onboarding friction and made the feature feel familiar, while also adding a tactile and engaging layer to the gameplay.

Proposed Toot and Boot Voting Screen

At this stage, I aligned with the engineering team to ensure the voting feature was technically feasible. One problem I raised was that early players might not have any content to vote on, since the system would initially lack submissions. To prevent empty voting states at launch, I proposed a conditional unlock once a submission threshold was met. The engineers and I collaborated on a mini prototype to make sure that this was possible.

Milestone 2 - Shaping the Feature

We received both Negative and Positive feedback during our internal playtesting sessions. Some of these include:

Positive

  • Enjoyed new challenge format

  • Voting earning rewards

  • Themes are open to interpretation

Negative

  • Swiping was an unfamiliar gesture

  • Negative emotional response to “Booting”

Updated Design Philosophy

“Removing negative experiences by only providing positive feedback.”

Comparitive Voting: Empowering Choice

Together with the game designer, we redesigned the voting mechanic to encourage positive reinforcement through comparative choices and simplified interaction. By replacing swipe gestures and binary judgments with clearly labeled buttons, I reduced cognitive load and improved accessibility.

Initial Design

Updated Design

Immediate Feedback: Rewarding Engagement

I designed a post-vote widget to reinforce engagement by showing immediate progress toward rewards, creating a clear feedback loop that motivates continued interaction.

Challenge Hub Design

Updated Voting with Widget

Milestone 3 - Unifying User Interface

After completing the initial iteration phase, I transitioned into designing the high-fidelity UI for the Toot and Boot feature. My primary goal was to ensure visual and experiential cohesion throughout the interface, reinforcing to players that they were consistently within the same feature environment. By adhering to the Style Guide established early in the game design process in collaboration with the Art Director, we were able to streamline the high-fidelity design phase.

Challenge Hub Design

Final Design

We crafted a unified icon set to support intuitive player actions and reinforce the feature’s core loop. Players spend a Toot Ticket to cast a vote (Toot), and upon completing the challenge, they earn additional Toot Currency. This design choice helped us keep a sustained, self-contained ecosystem that encouraged continued engagement.

Milestone 4 - Building the Feature

All views, overlays, and prefabs for the feature were built in Unity and handed off to engineers to implement functionality, ensuring a smooth transition from design to production.

Toot and Boot Wardrobe

Toot and Boot Hub

Toot and Boot Voting

Impact

Toot and Boot quickly emerged as one of the most beloved features in the game. Players engaged with it daily, proudly sharing their outfit creations across community platforms such as Discord and Reddit. The feature not only deepened social connection within the player base but also played a key role in boosting retention and driving revenue.

  • Active players prior to Toot and Boot Feature spent roughly 45 minutes a day on the game.

  • Active players post Toot and Boot Feature spent roughly 1 hour 25 minutes a day on the game, an increase of 40 minutes, almost double what they did before.