Arid
First-Person Survival Game set in the Atacama Desert, Student Project
Roles: Lead UI/UX Designer | Engine: Unreal Engine 4 | Platform: PC | Duration: 32 weeks | Team Size: 22
Accomplishments
4k+ Steam Festival Demo Downloads
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HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY
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Arid is a gritty, exploration-survival experience that challenges players in surviving the most arid place in the world.
By using your skills and adaptation, you must face the loneliness, the extreme temperatures, and mysteries of the Atacama Desert.
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Responsibilities/Contributions:
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As a UI/UX designer for ARID, I had full ownership of the complete in-game user interface, a full-fledged landing page and the overall user flow and experience.​​
To achieve this, I had to research the target audience, conduct competitor research, maintain workflow pipelines and work in collaboration with a UI artist and programmer. I followed a very iterative workflow and communicated back and fourth with QA to constantly improve the UI based off usability test feedback.
Throughout this process, I upheld strong inter-disciplinary communication with art, programming, gameplay design and level design to showcase ideas and implement them in-engine.
Concepting (8 weeks)
Proof of Concepts/prototypes
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As a technical designer, I was responsible for the creation of proof of concepts of features that would enhance the game concept. I created a fully modular sandstorm prototype so that level design could test it in their levels. I also created a proof of concept for the "investigation" design pillar in the shape of a magnifying glass.
Furthermore, I created the proof of concepts of two inventory types: weight based vs. slot based as these types were primarily used in our reference titles research. This proved to require a lot of collaborative effort with programming and design.
compass prototype
target audience research
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As a UI/UX designer, I was responsible for the research of different potential target audience and analysing their pros and cons to communicate those with the design team and producers. I created various surveys to understand the market size and opportunities better.
I then singled out the casual and hardcore survival target audiences and conducted behavioral analysis in their respective games to understand which audience was better suited for a student project of our scale.
Overall, I gathered over 1100 responses from various gaming communities that fit our research criterias.
User research
user persona
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Since I was also responsible for the creation of a user persona as part of the target audience analysis process, I gathered the results I gathered from both audiences research, and compiled them into two user personas. I then presented them to the team in the hopes of coming to a consensus as to which target we should aim for (based off my research.
user persona 1
pre-production (8 weeks)
competitor research
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In order to gather inspiration for the in-game and off-game interfaces, I conducted competitor research on 3 reference titles (Subnautica, Breathedge and The Long Dark). I analyzed and broke down each menu flow to create better wireframes based off existing games.
Additionally, to ensure clearer and better communication, I compiled all my visual references into a "UI inspiration document" which I used during meetings.
menu flow
user interface blockout
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As a UI/UX designer during the pre-production phase, I was responsible for the creation of a full user interface blockout for the steam demo release. I started by creating a full wireframe in Adobe XD for the menu flow and in-game interfaces that would be available to the player. This enabled me to present my ideas to the concept artists and create a UI asset list for the pre-production and production phases.
Through considerable collaboration and communication with art and programming, I created in-engine blockouts of all the wireframes that I created.
HUd wireframe
planning
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Being responsible for the entire user interface of the game, I spent most of the latter portion of the pre-production phase planning out the implementation of all the UI assets in-engine. In order to achieve this, I spent a lot of time evaluating priorities with the UI concept artist in the "UI asset list" document.
I also collaborated with the animation team to plan out various UI related animations for the production phase which would benefit the user experience.
ui asset list
production (8 weeks)
user interface/experience
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During the production phase, as a UI/UX designer, I focused on fleshing out the entire menu and in-game interfaces. I based my work off research and blockouts created during the pre-production phase all the while implementing art assets for the UI.
This phase, I had to work tightly with all disciplines, ensuring that the gameplay was well represented and the art style was unified.
As for QA, I relied a lot on the playtesting results done by my peers, however, I also conducted weekly usability tests.
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Throughout this process, I produced/iterated upon:
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Character menus (player inventory, player stats)
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Pause menu
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Landing page
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Crafting & Cooking interfaces
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Player HUD
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Player alerts/notification system
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Keybindings
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Menu interactions
character menu
landing page
release (in-progress) (8 weeks)