MA Study into Customisable Game UI

What I Found  I learnt so much about what makes interfaces look good. I learnt that friction within UI can make or break a game. From matching UI to the game art style in order to maintain immersion; to altering the scale and shape of buttons proportionally to their function; to  colour palettes and how they can seriously effect playability as well as player wellbeing; and to animations potentially ruining the pacing of a game.  I also learnt about what makes interfaces work well. I learnt that UI can be organised into categories depending on their involvement in game story and game space. I also learnt that these categories work better or worse depending on game genre and that I should pay close attention the function based on genre in the future.  What I Need to Research Further  Having spent a lot of time looking at the sensory implications of UI, I would like to further explore accessibility in interfaces. I feel that this should always be a major consideration when designing inter

This is the original main menu from the Sims 4. In my personal opinion, it is far too vibrant and the colours clash, fighting for the player's attention. The llama gif in the lower right is distracting as it constantly moves and removes the player's focus from the more important elements of the menu. The pack icon colours do not look right to me either, they are too similar to contrast but too different to match and it can cause many issues for players with colourblindness. The brightness of the clashing colours also causes migraines and headaches for players with sensory issues.  My goal for the main menu redesign was to reduce these effects by choosing more understated colours that compliment each other better. In theory this would prevent migraines and create a better gaming experience for players with sensory issues.  For this redesign I decided to focus more on recolouring than layouts as I would like to spend longer researching the technical aspect behind a good UI layout

The Sims Community is very vocal about their thoughts and feelings on The Sims games. People often tweet or message The Sims page on Twitter with thoughts on new packs or ideas and concerns for the direction of the game. There are also a number of YouTubers who voice their thoughts and get their followers to respond with opinions under their videos in order to start conversations about matters surrounding the game. These YouTubers also share mods - fan made modifications to the game - that they enjoy and think their audience would benefit from.  I will be looking in more detail at opinions by three Sims YouTubers involving the issues with the game that I mentioned in my previous post. I will be focusing mainly on the main menu and loading screen.  Main Menu  Plumbella Plumbella has a very similar opinion on the main menu as I do. She claims that 'it looks way too commercial'  and that  'this is the least 'Sims-y [menu] screen that I have ever seen' .  ⁽¹⁾  I am incl

I have played The Sims series since its first game launched in the year 2000. I have played all of the main games extensively and still regularly return to its latest instalment, The Sims 4, to this day. As an avid player of the series for the last 20 years, I like to believe that I know quite a lot about the games and would like to use this knowledge to evaluate the UI in the latest game. So lets get into the issues that I have:  The Sims 4 was released in 2015 but was rebranded in 2019. This included a new main menu and loading screen along with new branding for online sales of the game and  physical changes to game p ackaging in stores.  Main Menu  This is the original main menu for The Sims 4 and I have no real issues with this screen. It is simple to use and gives a good representation of the game through colours and feelings.  This    is the new main menu from the 2019 rebrand and there are a number of issues that I personally have with this game.  Colours   The new colour palett

Now that I have researched a little into what makes UI good, I can start to evaluate what makes it bad. In my many years playing games, I have come across multiple interfaces that clash in terms of both looks and function.  Everything below is simply my opinion and is subjective. I understand that everyone will have different experiences and thoughts on these games and I would love to hear others opinions on these game interfaces.  Diablo II: Lord of Destruction  Diablo II is one of the first games I ever played as a child and will always be close to my heart. However, when looking back at this game from a more critical point of view, there are issues with the UI.  For the most part, the UI is well made. The inventory system is cleanly laid out and its grid format makes each section easy to understand; the health, stamina and mana meters are pretty yet simple to understand at a quick glance in combat; and quick hotkey access to potions in the player belt makes refilling those meters fa

What Makes User Interface Work?  To understand what makes UI work, we must first look at the two key elements, narrative and the fourth wall .  Toptal.com defines narrative as:  'the story that a video game tells'.  ⁽¹⁾  Toptal.com defines the fourth wall as:  'an imaginary barrier between the game player and the space in which the game takes place'.  ⁽¹⁾  These aspects create two questions that have to be answered in every UI component:  - 'does the component exist in the game story?'  - 'does the component exist in the game space?'  This then creates four categories of UI Design.  Non-Diegetic  Does the component exist in the game space? No  Does the component exist in the game story? No  Non-Diegetic UI exists outside of both the story and space of a game, this means that non of the player characters or non-playable characters (NPCs) are aware of the existence of the UI.  Toptal explains that 'in fast-paced games, non-diegetic components may inte