Console Game
A puzzle game published on Steam, Nintendo, PS4, and Xbox. The game is up to 4 players, and provide single, teamup, and battle mode.
Playerium 2D design team
Concept Artist Lighting UI/UX Design Video Editing
Adobe Photoshop Unreal Engine 4 Adobe XD Adobe Effect Maya Blender
1 year and 10 months
Georifters is a console game which players use controllers to explore the UI. My responsibilities encompassed lighting, environment concept, UI, UX design, and video making.
The 2D team started from UI design at first, then gradually join the UX design process.
The art design team was not involved in the initial UX research but received a prototype that resembled a Sitemap. Therefore, in addition to the UI design, we were also designing the UX of the page.
Here are some goals that we were aiming to achieve on UI/UX.
When designing the layout, we encountered some challenges:
When discussing the art style, we chose the relatively easy-to-produce 2D comic style due to the ease of production and time cost.
Once we had decided on the style direction, we standardized the typeface, colors, and materials.
We would provide engineers with a Techboard that includes the size specifications. In addition, we would also create a demonstration video so that engineers can understand the effect we want to achieve.
Once the engineers have added the UI, the team members would start to try it out and test it. We would put our feedback in JIRA, an agile development software. 2D team would review these feedbacks, evaluate the problem, and make adjustments.
Besides usual internal tests, the company also arranged several usability studies with external personnel. After the studies, we would ask participants to fill out questionnaires. The question included the overall experience, the difficulty of operation, and UI/UX feedback. The results would be added to JIRA.
There were many findings from these usability sutdies. For example:
Take Character Selection page in team up mode as an example. Players now can press Y button to check the character abiliy of their chosen character. Furthermore, we adjust the scale and porpotion of each elements, to help users focus on the character area.
Beside the UI/UX, I also participated in other prats of the production. Here are some demonstration of them.
The 2D team had all worked on enviroment, characters, and props design.
The enviroment design start at the very early stage of the development. We were exploring the story at the same time. Fortunately, the idea of candy world had been selected as one of the main theme, and become the main character - Candy's hometown.
Thanks to our delicated 3D props, lighting these scenes are really joyful.
There are 4 day light scene, and 5 night scene in total.
I also made some extra exploration for fun.
The "Hero Spotlight" series are vidoes introducing the characters.
Designing for a console game is an exceptional opportunity that presents a multitude of unique challenges and invaluable learning experiences. In addition to the fundamental principles of user experience (UX) design, we are faced with overcoming the limitations imposed by controllers and ensuring optimal performance. Yet, despite the negotiations and necessary compromises, it is truly inspiring to witness the triumph over these obstacles and create a remarkable masterpiece.
This experience holds great value, as it prepares me to tackle unforeseen problems that may arise in future design projects. It instills in me the confidence to face any obstacles or restrictions head-on, knowing that exceptional achievements are still within reach. The lessons learned from designing for console games have strengthened my resolve and equipped me with the resilience to overcome any challenge that comes my way.
