game design 2 (2013): immersion through game ui
DESCRIPTION
Diegesis can help the player lose themselves in UI.TRANSCRIPT
Game Design 2Lecture 7: Immersion through UI
http://gcugd2.com [email protected]
2013
Sunday, 3 November 13
Reading
• Anthony Stonehousehttp://bit.ly/9isY6D
• Erik Fagerhold & Magnus Lorentzon (2009)http://bit.ly/d0HfcW
• Gamasutra (Marcus Andrews @ EA:DICE)http://bit.ly/9H6xuL
• SlideShare presentation from Fagerholdhttp://slidesha.re/bjxr4I
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Immersive UI
• Trend towards minimal HUD
• UI as transparent as possible to not distract player
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Terminology
• Diegetic: Interface included in the game world
• Non-diegetic: Interface rendered outside game world
• Spatial: UI Elements resented in game’s 3D space but not be an actual in-game entity
• Meta: Representations can be in game but aren’t necessarily visualised spatially for player
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Case Study: Far Cry 2
• Goes to great lengths to make UI diegetic
• especially hard for FPS games
• Uses in-game gadgets perform traditional HUD roles
• map
• time
• weapon condition
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What works?
• Novelty factor
• diging bullets out of arm
• Ubisoft promoting UI in marketing
• Interaction with NPCs
• you can see what that character is doing
• injury rescue
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What doesn’t work?
• UI seems conflicted
• there are traditional non-diegetic HUD elements such as: ammo; interaction opportunities; health etc
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• The non-diegetic elements fade in and out
• Some elements of the UI don’t provide the player with enough information
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What does it mean?
• The struggles of FC2 show that it is nearly hopeless for (realistic FPS) games to be playable and 100% diegetic
• If you make a late decision to compliment your diegetic components with non-diegetic, the design will suffer - best to plan
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Case Study: Dead Space
• Fully diegetic interface.
• Unlike most games, they had an explicit direction that all UI elements be ‘in the game world’
• Fairly traditional HUD system with a twist
• all rendered as in-game holograms
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• in addition to the holograms, Dead Space also draws interface on the actual player avatar
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What works?• Sci-Fi Fiction lends itself to diegetic UI
• “typical UI, rendered atypically”
• Perspective
• Using player avatar as a canvas is a great way to promote immersion
• largely depending on setting & 3rd person camera
• Preserving Functionality
• preserves functionality but adds styleSunday, 3 November 13
What doesn’t work?
• Functionality breakdown
• the holographic 3D map failed to aid player navigation leading to the implementation of another, complimentary feature - the ‘locator’ that has a completely new diegetic spatial method
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What does it mean?
• Fairly traditional interface rendered in novel fashion.
• May be unrealised potential benefit of diegetic & innovative UI
• Whilst the UI may have helped in the marketing (& sales?) its benefit to the gameplay is subjective
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Case Study: TF 2
• Uses mixed methods to communicate
• very much a “whatever works” approach
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What works?
• Mix of UI elements from each of the categories provides for lots of info without a cluttered HUD
• shows that UI components don’t need to have an immediately obvious theme or be immersive to work
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What doesn’t work
• the mix of styles can be perceived as a bit messy
• inconsistencies can require more cognition from the player
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What does it mean?
• TF2 has hardly any diegetic qualities but largely succeeds in UI design.
• Shows that players will tolerate mixing styles in an interface
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Summary
• Diegetic interface elements can help to reinforce the fiction of a game and can help keep the player immersed.
• Diegetic elements are harder to design and integrate than non-diegetic elements especially in FPS games like Far Cry 2
• When there is a trade off between immersion and functionality - functionality must be given priority
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