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VICTORIA CHASTAN
UI DESIGNER, ARTIST
Development
Changes
The direction of the user interface was changed heavily to fit with the aesthetics and world building of Wildfrost. Several menus also went through multiple changes to make the user experience streamlined and user interface design simplified.
For one example, the hearts for the protagonist was changed to blue flames. Because of the strong connection of the fire to the player's life, the health should be perceived as indirectly connected to their life source and power on a meta level.
Original Concept
New UI Concept - Full Health
Flame Disperses when Attacked
Remaining Health
Alpha HUD
Improved HUD
Alpha HUD
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Another example is the light radius. In the alpha, the radius was difficult to see. The radius' opacity and design has been changed where it's easy to be seen and gauged when the enemy overlaps with it. Additionally, the player has a useful offensive ability to stun enemies with their light radius. The radius design enlarges itself for a few seconds after the player holds and release a command button to stun, and returns back to normal size.
Light Radius
Stun Ability
Another example is the light radius. In the alpha, the radius was difficult to see. The radius' opacity and design has been changed where it's easy to be seen and gauged when the enemy overlaps with it. Additionally, the player has a useful offensive ability to stun enemies with their light radius. The radius design enlarges itself for a few seconds after the player holds and release a command button to stun, and returns back to normal size.
The Pause Menu went through an overhaul change in negative and positive space, placement, icon design and typography. For one example, the navigation buttons in the pause menus were large sticky notes but the size made the placement clustered and messy. For the next design, the sticky notes were reduced in size to give a symmetrically linear alignment for the buttons (shown in slideshow below.
Original Pause Menu
Improved Pause Menu
Original Pause Menu
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The new design influenced ideas into the user interface. The sticky notes, when selected, shows an animation of being peeled open to reveal torn notes. These pieces of paper hold the YES and NO confirmation buttons for the player to use before being navigated to the selected menu.
The Map Menu was originally a simple layout of the current map, overlayed over the game screen with a 80% black opacity layer. However, on an aesthetic level, it doesn't draw much attention to it and has little connection to the worldbuilding. Keeping to the theme of using a survivalist's book, most of the menus were refined to fit to it.
When the player navigates to the map via the map button in the new Pause Menu, an animation is shown: a folded blue map slips out from the pages and unfolds itself over the book, showing the discovered parts of the map. The slideshow below demonstrates that example.
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Another major menu change is the inventory. Originally, the player would have a crafting system inside their inventory to help with survivability. However, crafting was scrapped out from the project to make a simple inventory system.
Other user interface elements went through minor changes, from different type fonts to colour saturation and better input schemes. Interaction on objects from the alpha project had to be changed because they did not stand out to catch the player's eye - immediately knowing on first glance they are interaction. Below are some examples.
All the many changes and directions wouldn't have been possible without the feedback and help from GAT 261 class, 2018, Fall, and lecturer, Micheal Thompson.
Old Version
New Version
Old Version
New Version
Speech Bubble User Interface
Interactive Objects - Tightrope
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