RESEARCH & GUINEA PIGS

• I found that experienced players were moving fluently from the start. They were confident running, jumping, looking around, and attacking enemies. Their main frustration would be when tutorials would interrupt (and literally stop time) whatever they were doing.
• For inexperienced players things were more complicated in their eyes. In the title, Bioshock Infinite, it assumes that people know how to move around and didn’t have instructions because of it. This led to a lot of people getting stuck within the first 5 minutes of the game. In addition, they struggled with understanding their surroundings more than the experienced group because they were intensely focused on the center of their screen (and didn’t look around much). These restrictions ended up causing the inexperienced group to miss key information, like how to heal, quest items, enemy locations, and more.

FUNCTIONS, FEATURES, AND FUN

• When taking into account both groups it was clear that instructions were necessary, but there needed to be a middle ground as to how much it disrupts their gameplay. Due to this, I added a notification that wouldn’t stop gameplay, but would remain on the side until the player cleared it away manually.
• To maintain immersion I ended up trying to visually match the HUD with the look and feel of the game Dishonored. The overall vibe is grungy, dystopian, and grey with minimal splashes of color. Reflected with rough edges and minimal accent colors, my visual system was created in hopes players don’t get distracted when playing.
• Dishonored is a game that is based on stealth. To make the game easier (and more interesting) I added visual and auditorial indicators to let players know how loud they are or if enemies can see you. In addition, I implemented a navigation arrow that is linked to a mini-map due to the amount of inexperienced players getting lost (and getting caught up in fights because of it).

After months of work, I was able to finalize the Dishonored’s HUD and tailor the design to experienced and inexperienced players. The components redesigned and implemented were the: health bar, mana bar, navigation and mini map, weapon display, primary and secondary tutorial pop-ups, objectives, interaction indicators, sight and sound indicators, and quick-wheels. Many of these features are unavailable within the original game. This new design was created to provide clearer instructions to the players about the game itself, as well as fundamental features that would assist their gaming experience.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to implement my prototype into the software of the game. Due to this, a focus group reviewing the final design ended up confused as to what each component meant because they didn’t have the game or its functionality as context. If somehow I’d be able to connect with the developers of Dishonored and acquire any licensing requirements, I’d love to try to test my design within the game itself to see how it might affect players during their gaming session.