UX Researcher & Designer
Core information:
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Developed an innovative inventory system.
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Utilized academic research to improve the UX of that inventory system.
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Created aim-assist solutions tailored to the game's needs.
Conception
Transistor + The Wonderful 101
An isometric game where players manage their inventory by drawing curved shapes and connecting weapons to them.
Presentation Slide for the Line Pulser project
UX Research Project
For my Honours Project, I tackled 2 core issues related to the UX of my game's inventory:
I needed to transmit how long a line could be while players drew it. My game allowed for the lines to increase their maximum length through power-ups, making this information one that players cannot memorize or grow used to.
Discarded UI Design for Transmiting Line Lenght
One of the solutions that I prototyped was utilizing the rope's colour as an indicator of how close it was to its maximum length. This mechanic was supported by parallel auditive feedback in the form of a sound raising in pitch.
Simultaneously, I needed to implement feedback on the process of deleting lines. To reduce the number of UI elements on the screen, I contained the visual feedback to the line itself, converting it into a progress bar that players fill by holding the delete button.
Lack of System Feedback
Poor discoverability
For my inventory, I created a selection system inspired by Destiny. Users could use it to discover the functionality of the nodes and power-ups.
Its implementation was not simple. Because of the effects described by Fitt's Law, players had difficulties accurately controlling the reticle.
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I decided to add a gravity system to the reticle to reduce the number of correction moves players performed:
Additionally, I also introduced SFX, a decreased FOV, and a camera parallax effect.
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All of these elements resulted in an enjoyable inventory experience.
Inventory - Destiny (2014)
An isometric nightmare
I inadvertently created numerous design problems when I decided on isometric as the combat perspective for my game.
Aim-Assist
Given the isometric perspective and the joystick controls, players required an Aim-Assist system to reduce the friction between the gameplay and players' limited aim accuracy.
Other isometric games like Hades present a snappy aim-assist, heavily correcting player input (Example). However, my game had certain qualities that differentiated from typical isometric combat games:
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Players use multiple weapons at once. Those weapons converge their trajectories at one point, and those trajectories diverge after the point (see Image 1).
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The bullet-hell genre encourages dealing with multiple enemies at once, instead of prioritizing just one.
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Bullets are projectile and not hitscan or similar. As such, enemies can avoid projectiles with their movement.
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The aim-assist system that I created worked by defining a point for the weapon trajectories to converge. However, this point was not always an enemy. Instead, it was a weighted (by proximity) average of the position of enemies in front of the player's vision (see Image 2).
​Advantages of my Aim-Assist:
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It was harder to target individual enemies inside groups but easier to aim at whole groups (Compare Images 1 and 2. The rightmost enemy in Image 1 will never be hit by a weapon. However, all enemies in Image 2 are inside the area of influence of the weapon trajectories).
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Bullets were more likely to hit an enemy. Since projectile-based bullets allow enemies to dodge them, high precision when shooting was not a priority. Instead, aiming at the average enemy position of groups ensured that some enemies will be hit.
Image 1 - Trajectories Converging at an enemy.
Image 2 - Trajectories converging at an average position of the group of enemies.
A compressed perception of vertical space
The isometric perspective also affected the perception of players. More precisely, it distorted their perception of vertical distances.
As can be seen in Image 3, the isometric perspective compresses the visible space along the Z-axis.
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It also compresses the angles visible in the XZ-plane. Players' accuracy is reduced when aiming in a horizontal direction (left or right).
This disparity in perceived space can be perhaps best visualized with the area of influence of the Aim-Assist system. This is the same arc area aimed at different directions.
Image 4 - Vertical Aim Assist
Image 5 - Initial Horizontal Aim Assist
The difference is even more apparent if we rotate Image 4:
Image 4 (Rotated) - Vertical Aim Assist
Image 5 - Initial Horizontal Aim Assist
The solution to this problem was to apply a modifier to the Aim-Assist system that progressively increased the angles of influence of the system as players approached the horizontal orientation. This way, the perceived space of the player's Aim-Assist system stayed consistent across all orientations.
Image 4 (Rotated) - Vertical Aim Assist
Image 6 - Corrected Horizontal Aim Assist
45º
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Image 3 - Isometric distorsion of perception.
