Skullcat’s Omen is a task-management tool for people who struggle with choice paralysis and executive dysfunction.

The app reduces task selection to two inputs: How urgent is it? How important is it?

Once tasks are categorized, the user presses one button. Skullcat prophesizes, the board goes dark, and the app chooses an omen.

The interaction turns “What should I do?” into a smaller decision.

Typical task workflows assume that once someone has a list, they can choose an item, prioritize it, and begin. For people with executive dysfunction, each step can become another point of friction.

I focused on the moment where choosing the next task becomes difficult.

Devon is a composite of the executive-dysfunction pain points I designed Skullcat’s Omen around, built from research into ADHD and task paralysis. See Devon’s full profile

I researched existing products aimed at ADHD and executive-function challenges, looking at reward systems, gamification, visual task grids, and priority-based organization.

These approaches helped with motivation and organization, but few addressed the specific problem of choosing where to start. See how they compare

Each executive-function symptom maps to a specific game mechanic rather than a generic productivity feature. See all five problems and solutions

Add a task, then either let Skullcat pick one at random or choose it directly, complete it, then either banish it with the randomizer’s flourish or cross it off yourself, looping back to adding the next one.

Horror gives the randomization process a sense of anticipation and ritual, so task selection feels like a small game rather than a checklist.

The visual direction draws from horror games such as Fran Bow and Fear & Hunger, alongside gothic and occult imagery: tarot, skulls, cats, and ritualistic interfaces. Skullcat became the centerpiece of the ritual. See the research behind it

My first draft leaned heavily into a cute, cartoon-like interpretation of Skullcat. The single-screen interface gave the task matrix most of the space, using large vector blocks and illustrations created in Figma and Affinity.

The interaction worked, but the visual language felt too cutesy for the horror-adjacent atmosphere I wanted. This was my own judgment, not a test result.

To fix the cutesy feel, I replaced the vector-heavy treatment with hand-drawn illustrations and a gothic aesthetic, extending ornamental rectangular components across the randomizer and task cards. Typography shifted to Macondo for titles and buttons, and IM Fell English for task lists.

Each task category maps to a Major Arcana card by theme:
🗼 Priority > The Tower
🙃 Important > The Hanged Man
🪄 Urgent > The Magician
🃏 Trivial > The Fool

Once the visual direction was locked, I built the full app in Claude: task logic, randomization, the dread system, and live-synthesized sound.

Motion and sound became part of the ritual, letting the randomizer build anticipation before each pick. See every animation and sound

Testing with 10 volunteers, alongside my own use, showed the new look went a bit too far: 30% found it frightening and intimidating. Performance was the other problem. Some effects caused lag during task selection, so I removed or simplified them until it felt responsive. See what testing revealed

A strong visual concept still needs to serve the product problem.

For Skullcat’s Omen, horror shapes the interaction itself: categorization becomes ritual, randomization becomes anticipation, and choosing a task becomes a small moment of play.

But I focused so much on presentation that, for some people, it stopped being a tool they wanted to use. A task manager only helps if people want to come back to it.