User Interface: I Promise this is Exciting, Please Trust Me

That’s right, instead of gameplay, story, art, or anything else you would probably care about, we’re talking about menus.

You may scoff, you may be appalled, you may wish we didn’t live in such trying times, but the UI, or the User Interface, is a crucial aspect of any gaming experience that often goes unappreciated! Proper UI design can mean the difference between a slick gameplay experience and giving up because it takes 49 seconds just to pause.

That, and our UI has a pretty unique approach!

With this image, it’s apparent that our primary menu is a journal. This was not a random design choice; it was calculated with an equation not even the world government knows, for not even they could decipher our machinations. But I shall reveal those secrets now:

This is our main character Astraia’s journal!

When working in an incredibly limited scope, it’s important to utilize as much as you can in the name of crafting an experience, and this approach allowed us to turn even a menu into an extra opportunity for character and narrative. As such, our creative director was insistent that just about every aspect of the UI be from Astraia’s perspective.

This approach presented a unique set of obstacles for both the artists and writers. And, in a way unintended by our meager understandings of society, these two disparaging groups had to come together to determine what this would look like (thanks a lot, Kwesi). And, according that now-mentioned creative director (THANKS A LOT, KWESI), Astraia doodles. And she especially doodles in her journal. And thus, our artists had the task of figuring out a fictional character’s art style.

We first decided that it’d make sense for Astraia to be a pretty good artist, what with her constantly drawing up blueprints. And so sketches for items, people, and tools were created with that mindset.

But then we had an important realization; Astraia is, in fact, 12. And 12-year-olds aren’t exactly known for their great artistic abilities, no matter how much they draw (unless you’re one of those dirty child prodigies, you sons of guns). And, as funny as it would be to have the journal be filled with a bunch of hideous scribbles masquerading as items, players probably wouldn’t find it as funny.

That was how we arrived at the compromise of making Astraia terrible at drawing people (while also making some of her other drawings worse). But PEOPLE especially.

The first set of “bad” people drawings weren’t good; not because they were bad, but because our artists (Looking at you, REN) were too good. So we had to bring out the big guns.

If you want to make an artist cry, look in their first sketchbook. That’s the style we wanted to capture, except, in Astraia’s eyes, she hasn’t grown up enough to realize she should be crying about it. Our artists sent in their old childhood drawings for reference (of which I will not place an image of here because I’m certain they would take some psychic damage as soon as this blog gets uploaded), and Astraia’s art was finalized!

Check your fly, loser.

Writing-wise, we had a whole different set of challenges: namely, the balance of utility versus personality. Astraia, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, has the tendency to get off topic easily. This is great for character, but terrible for efficient portrayals of information. And portraying information efficiently is, like, what UI is for.

Our solution was rather simple: split up each description, for the ones that had information to convey. The top half would give all the important stuff for those who don’t care about Astraia (but just know, she cares about you), while the bottom half would expand upon Astraia, Pygunjú, Zakumbaland, or whatever nonsense we came up with.

Of course, this simple solution was an exception, because EVERYTHING had to fit within this definitely-real journal. That note Astraia forgot to write on her blueprints? It’s obviously paperclipped on. The page showcasing Astraia’s current team? It’s not “Your” team, it’s “MY” team, because YOU aren’t Astraia. That definitely incredibly funny item description you wrote which only made sense if Astraia spoke it out loud? Detritus; throw it out. She’s WRITING in her journal, not SPEAKING at it!

Ultimately, we wanted the UI to be something that you would be able to make yourself in the real world. Perhaps now you see the value in a game’s UI! Or maybe you already knew it. And, if you did, these last 737 words have been pretty worthless.

Thank you for reading, and come back next week for another blog! It might be riveting.

— A Duck Named James