I think there’s a few more buttons i’ll need to create icons for.
And I believe I need to do a wireframe for the Game complete screen also.
(Are there any others?)
After I’ll move onto creating last persona 16 yr old gamer. Complete journey map.
Download Link here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0skoraKEChKMm9GR29JeFVCWmc/view?usp=sharing
Played around with some ideas for the game including a perk system and objective system in the UI. I know we spoke about adding no new features to the game as it’s about localization, but ideas are good anyway in low fidelity wire frames 🙂 Ignore these aspects if you’re sure we’re not adding anything new in.
Download link here: updated 27/11/15
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0skoraKEChKbjhEVV9DZ3pNMFU/view?usp=sharing
Next I’ll be finishing this redesign, creating the last persona, creating a user journey chart, then moving onto higher fidelity designs. And also looking at graphical icons to use in the UI. Tybb for today
Read below or download via this link, Summary of Competitor Evaluation & Analysis
For the best chance to create an engaging and responsive user interface initial research was conducted by evaluating 5 games with regards to the 14 chosen heuristics, as well as evaluating how each of these games localize their content. I have chosen a mix of PC and Mobile games. As well as heuristically evaluating these games, I’ve analysed each of their features and have created two spreadsheets containing the sum of my research. Each of the five games researched, reside in the same genre as our own, an Isometric shooter. Below I have summarised my research to make it easier and clearer for my team and myself to view. I have highlighted aspects of their interfaces where we should not follow and aspects which we should use for inspiration.
It’s obvious that Hatred had the biggest production budget out of all the games. The games menu’s options and the interface in general are very professional and consists of all the features you would expect from a high calibre game, including;
However, there are some very questionable decisions the designers of Hatred have made, which I would think for our game, we should shy away from, including;
Overall the interface is very usable and the game is very playable. The usability problems I found are very minor, except for the UI components being at the bottom of the screen, which is very hard to focus on when you’re shooting at enemies at the top of the screen, and the lack of a scoring system which is there to flatter the player and motivate them, however this may be due to the style of the game (not arcade game).
Minigore 2 was chosen because it’s an improvement on the earlier title, Minigore 1. Both games have the same amount of review stars (4.5/5) on the apple app store, and has strong reviews from big organizations such as the Guardian newspaper, IGN and GameTrailers. With over 6 million recorded players worldwide it’s clear that Minigore is an example of a very successful action game on mobile. Features I feel which we can incorporate or take inspiration from include;
Areas where the interface and game is lacking in, include;
Overall, Minigore is an extremely well made and incredibly fun game. The controls are very simple with the option to customize them. The interface is easy to navigate however confusing at the start as there is no real ‘Main menu’, however after a few minutes of playing it becomes natural and feels quicker than other games I have evaluated. The game is very fast paced and with no real ‘main’ menu, as a player I could navigate between levels extremely quickly and access a variety of the games features seamlessly. One of the best features I found was the visibility of objectives in the pause menu, motivating the player to play the game to receive rewards.
12 is better than 6 was chosen because the game fits into the genre of ‘Top down’ shooter, which doesn’t stick with the genre of Isometric, however it is very close. The game is extremely original and innovative in terms of the visuals, the difficulty and the style of the game. Because of the game’s novelty, I feel it would be wise to seek inspiration from it for our own project. Features I feel which we can take inspiration from include;
Areas where the interface is lacking, include;
Overall, this indie game is very usable and novel to it’s genre. With innovative game play features, regarding the reloading, the difficulty and art style, the value for money is excellent. The interface is very simple and easy to navigate. I didn’t find any major problems with the UI, only a few minor problems. I think the main things to take away from this game are the perks shown in the pause menu, which could be partnered with objectives, referring to Minigore 2. Also the animations in the interface provide amazing feedback to the player, e.g., revolver chamber spinning when firing and bullets animating into it when reloading. Also with regards to localization the game provides language selection and the beginning of the game, eliminating frustrations of searching for your native language through incomprehensible words.
Zombiewood was chosen because of its similarities to our own game. Zombiewood is an isometric survival game, much like Minigore 2.Also similar to Minigore, Zombiewood has consistently received 4-5 star reviews. The game has a very arcade style feel like Minigore 2 and our own game DND, but it has a stronger focus on the story, which I feel we could learn from and incorporate into our own game. Not an indie game, but rather it was created by the well renowned game developer, Gameloft. Features to take inspiration from include;
Areas in which not to follow include;
Overall Zombiewood has a very usable interface and the in game interface itself is responsive. However I can’t help but compare it to Minigore 2, which I feel did a better job in terms of the UI. Both games have very very similar features however the consistency of the visual style in Minigore 2 and the general simplicity and layout make it the more enjoyable out of the two. In any case Zombiewood has provided me with some good guidelines on creating the UI for our project, in terms of what to include and what not to include.
Exanima was chosen as it fits into the genre specifications and because of its originality and novelty in the genre. Exanima is a very accomplished and successful game and has received very high reviews on Steam (720 positive to 156 negative). The game can be compared to games such as Dark souls and Bloodborne. These, and Exanima are very hardcore games where the player is rewarded minimally and punished significantly. Because of its hardcore nature some of the usability faults may be implemented with that in mind, as to create a more realistic and harder experience. This will be taken into account. Features I believe we could take inspiration from include;
Areas in which I believe we should not follow include;
In general, playing Exanima is an enjoyable experience, however it has some major flaws in the design and UI which I feel can’t be overlooked. Even though the game is meant to be difficult, it should not be difficult to understand and navigate through its menus. I think there is a lot to learn from Exanima, from their successes and their mistakes.
All of the games studied have things they do well, and things they don’t do well or leave out. I tried to choose games that stuck within our genre, however are completely different in the way they play and their styles, visually and in the way they play.
After experiencing all of the above games and evaluating and analysing them I feel I’ve come across a good number of good and bad points from which I can design a responsive and intuitive user interface. I feel this summary document will help myself and the team as we can refer to this quickly, without the need to look through my spreadsheets.
The findings to take inspiration from and to use from each game above should relate identically to the heuristics I have chosen for the evaluations, therefore I believe it more necessary, helpful and relevant to include a list of summarised ‘bad’ findings below, as well as the features to possibly include. As we can refer to the end column of my spreadsheets or directly to the heuristics to create good features in the design of the UI. I feel we need to summarise all the bad points so we can refer to them and compare them with the heuristics I’ve chosen to have a list of things to do, and a list of things to not do. Therefore below I have summarised the findings in which we should make sure to not include in our project.
So, my in my other module I’m doing a project related to a gaming service and have conducted surveys for that so for these personas for our game my research has included my surveys from my other project, I’ve conducted interviews (discussions) with friends, family and colleagues and have looked at a variety of statistics concerning gaming from credible sources.
I’m attaching the two current personas to this post.
P.S. Not sure why some lines are bold, ignore it.
Finished off my Competitor Evaluation and Competitor analysis today. No write up yet however the core information from the research is placed on the right of both spreadsheets. Giving guidance from how competitors have designed their interfaces. 2 mobile games were used and 3 PC games as we’re not 100% sure on what platform the game is intended for, which will impact the design.
I’ve also created some low fidelity wireframes (not complete halfway through – will finish tomorrow morning) for the design of our UI. However this is very very likely to see drastic changes when we have more of the design and game features laid out.
Guidelines from Microsoft [1]
. Avoid showing flesh, body parts, or gestures. Exposure of some body parts in one culture might not be acceptable in another. Also, using hand gestures can present problems since an innocent hand gesture in one culture can have an offensive interpretation in another
. Size the UI to accommodate for the largest localized version. Example – text re-sizes due to different languages and characters.
.Beware of gender specific roles and avoid stereotyping.
. Avoid religious preferences
. Avoid political symbols – Some markets may first require government approval to use.
.English text strings are usually shorter in other languages (Consider wrapping functions?) or (NO text in game)
.Sentence structures with numbers pulled from data may have to be changed for localization.
.Avoid using icons that are not the international standard (- E.g. an american mailbox will not resonate in different cultures across the globe.) or that contain embedded text (Keep text on different layers to graphical elements as to easily translate it without the need to edit the graphic).
.Different cultures use different keyboard layouts and some characters do not exist on some keyboards. (Review desired layout from the control panel or pictures before localizing to a specific locale) A workaround could be using function keys (F1,F2, etc..) which are present on all keyboards.
[1]Â https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa292162(v=vs.71).aspx
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