top of page
Evo\Wave
ROLE
Designer UI/UX
DESCRIPTION
As the last project of our university course, the whole class was tasked to create a full game in around 5 to 6 months as a team. Since I was the only UI/UX designer of the team, I was tasked with the programming of every interface and menu of the game.
YEAR
2021
GENRE
Collectathon, 3D Platformer, Retro/synthwave
PLATFORM
Steam
MADE WITH
Unreal Engine 4
HUD
As the game is a love letter to games of the past, the inspiration used for the HUD were the classic collectathon of the N64 era such as Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64.
The goal of a collectaton is to encourage the exploration of the different levels without having too much useless information in the HUD at all times in order to avoid taking the player from his immersion in the levels. With this in mind, we've only kept the most important information like the life counter and the small quest prompt reminder visible at all times if the player has a quest in progress.
Any other information and counters are kept out of the screen and they only come out if the player picks up a collectible to show the corresponding counter or if the player completes a quest objective.
We also decided to allow the player to be able to access this information at all times without having to pause the game and check in a menu. We created a button which shows everything from the HUD while the player maintains the correct button (E on keyboard and Right trigger on controller).
The goal of a collectaton is to encourage the exploration of the different levels without having too much useless information in the HUD at all times in order to avoid taking the player from his immersion in the levels. With this in mind, we've only kept the most important information like the life counter and the small quest prompt reminder visible at all times if the player has a quest in progress.
Any other information and counters are kept out of the screen and they only come out if the player picks up a collectible to show the corresponding counter or if the player completes a quest objective.
We also decided to allow the player to be able to access this information at all times without having to pause the game and check in a menu. We created a button which shows everything from the HUD while the player maintains the correct button (E on keyboard and Right trigger on controller).
Menu map and Indicators
During production, we started to implement special NPC’s who would give the player a quest if they interacted with them. Since not every NPC you can talk to gives the player a quest and the maps are pretty big, we knew the player could get lost by not remembering where the NPC who gave the player their quest was.
With this information , we decide it would be best for the player to be able to see the many objectives available in the current map by going to the glossary menu. By doing so, the player can now see where the main character is, where the different quests are, if they’re the main quest or secondary quests and the states of each quest from the form and the color shown.
We’ve also added these map indicators over the heads of the quest givers and different objectives such as enemies to defeat, NPCsto interact with or items to get, so the player could find them more easily.
The difficulty with these indicators was to use something that could go well with the three distinct art styles of the different levels and could make sense in the vectrex era world as well as the N64 or PS2 era.
With this information , we decide it would be best for the player to be able to see the many objectives available in the current map by going to the glossary menu. By doing so, the player can now see where the main character is, where the different quests are, if they’re the main quest or secondary quests and the states of each quest from the form and the color shown.
We’ve also added these map indicators over the heads of the quest givers and different objectives such as enemies to defeat, NPCsto interact with or items to get, so the player could find them more easily.
The difficulty with these indicators was to use something that could go well with the three distinct art styles of the different levels and could make sense in the vectrex era world as well as the N64 or PS2 era.
If I could do it again
The first thing that would be done differently would be the main menus. Initially, we wanted to make a more interactive main menu where the hub would be a market around the Evo\Core, where we would see the main characters of the game with the options buttons next to them. Also, the visuals of the main menu would reflect the progress of the player in the fixing of the EvoCore. So at first, it would be in the vectrex style, then N64, etc. Sadly, since the production was pretty short and it was a school project, it would have asked too much from everyone to make it possible while also being able to produce everything else needed in the different levels.
With this in mind, we decided to go with a more classic and simpler menu which the player could rapidly navigate to do what they desired and we put more effort in the glossary menu. By doing so, we created a main menu which is a bit too static and that would bring problems down the line if we were to add more options as this design only allows us to modify 4 options by category. If i could make it again, I would gladly create a new design for the main menu and I would like to add more options like color options as the vectrex world can be hard for color blind people.
With this in mind, we decided to go with a more classic and simpler menu which the player could rapidly navigate to do what they desired and we put more effort in the glossary menu. By doing so, we created a main menu which is a bit too static and that would bring problems down the line if we were to add more options as this design only allows us to modify 4 options by category. If i could make it again, I would gladly create a new design for the main menu and I would like to add more options like color options as the vectrex world can be hard for color blind people.
bottom of page