Mobile UI Design for Complex Games: Lessons from RuneScape Mobile

Porting a game to mobile is never just a resolution swap. When the source material is a 20-year-old MMORPG with dozens of overlapping menus, right-click context actions, and a keyboard-heavy control scheme, the challenge becomes an entirely different beast. During our founder's tenure at Jagex, we were part of the team that brought RuneScape to iOS and Android, a project that touched over 10 million players. That experience now underpins every mobile development project we take on at Ocean View Games. This post distils the hard-won lessons from that process into practical principles any studio can apply when adapting complex desktop interfaces for touchscreens. The Core Problem: Information Density vs. Screen Real Estate Desktop MMORPGs are information-rich by design. A typical RuneScape session might have the game world, an inventory panel, a chat window, a minimap, action bars, and skill trackers all visible simultaneously. On a 24-inch monitor, that works. On a 6-inch phone, it is u