Desaturation Point
Released April 2022
Desaturated Games, Team of 22
I am the lead UI designer for this strategy horror game. I was responsible for a team of artists and engineers who designed and implemented all UI aspects of our game. We wanted to have as minimal of a heads up display as possible and focused on how we could communicate diegetically, this was done through in close collaboration with the narrative and audio teams.
This game was made remotely due to covid considerations. Almost of the communication was done through Discord utilizing other tools such as Google Drive, Miro and Github to Coordinate and share work.
Because our team was small I also worked as a systems designer and on the marketing team as well as a few other one off tasks that needed to be done.
Process
Initial Proposals
I joined the team after the core concept was firmly established, though the original UI and player controls had been scrapped in favor of giving more freedom to the player. My first job was to create several mock ups and collected feedback from the rest of the team on what aspects they liked, disliked and wanted to see more of.
Card Mock up
Each unit had a card that featured a portrait and a health bar. This card would expand to give more information when the unit was selected. This design was limited but also left plenty of room for the gameplay.
This was the most simple design and the one we chose to expand on.
Pop Up Mock Up
Unfortunately, the team wasn't a big fan of this design. It allowed for much more information for each unit while keeping the core information accessible. This design allowed for
The main complaints for this one were that it didn't match the feeling and theming of the rest of the game.
Real Time Mock Up
Continuing the idea of showing additional information for the selected unit, this design provided more information and provided plenty of space to be flexible moving forward.
I still really like this design. Unfortunately it was out of scope for the project. We were all students and didn't have the time to utilize the space this design allowed.
Thank you for reading this far!
This page is still in progress and is regularly being updated as I find more of the in progress documents.