For about 20 weeks I worked alongside eight-game designers to develop a first-person shooter named Zygotic. With this team, I learned how to better execute as a designer using agile processes as well as gain a solid grasp of my role within a game design team.
Won best “best gameplay “ award in my course.
Role
UX Designer, Brand Designer
Case Study Coming Soon
A First Person FPS
Designing interactive user Feeback and interaction for a first person shooter.
The Game
The Epic
A first-person shooter based in a dystopian future, where up to six players battle out for survival. Players decide between collecting weapon modifications spawned on the map or to collect time possible to remain the last man standing.
Each player is given three minutes of time and has to get kills to receive additional seconds from killing other players to remain competitive within the match. Select and choose between viable weaponry such as Rail Gun, Shot Gun, and Fully Automatic rifles.
The Story
In the year 2200, planet earth has been desolated, over-populated and shifted into three primary areas of immigration. The Cuban Outposts facilitates immigration inside the American Utopias. An Indonesian outpost withholds economic stronghold of the Asian Utopia. Then lastly the Saudi Arabic Outpost serves as a gateway for the emerging European, Middle Eastern Utopians.
In this world, military visas are the only way for average people to gain access towards a better life and for the government to decide who is the best candidate for the application process. Eventually, these military visas have been used as a form of competition and transformed into a means of entertainment.
— Nicolai Diaz
Gameplay And Conditions
HOW TO PLAY
Find Time Throughout The Map
Gain Time By Killing Other Players
Gain Weapon Modifications
HOW TO WIN
Reach The Time Threshold
Last Man Standing
HOW TO LOSE
Player Runs Out Of Time
SUPPLEMENTING NON -ADS
With our tight deadlines and lack of a character animator, We didn’t want our programmer to have to worry about in-betweens for each unique weapon's aim down sight. We as a team decided to create a non-ADS styled shooter and charged based weaponry.
SUPPLEMENTING AN NON -ADS SHOOTER
Semi - Auto
Standard Semi-auto fire weapon with necessary recoil and a short .25s delay in-between shots. When designing this weapon, we focused on the player’s ability to center and reticule working itself as a shared mental model in video games.
Full Auto
Fully automatic weapon, where the gun overheats over time, and RNG (Random Number Generator)weapon recoil inserts more commonly. Through this, we need players to have the ability to focus on shooting the enemy player as well as continually being aware of the weapons current status.
Shot Gun
Unlike the other weapons before we needed to provide the feel of a very rewarding gun within close quarters, but represents the same overheat mechanic without removing the bloom/ recoil. I desired to keep a simple circle, but with the encouragement of my team; I could keep the clean futuristic aesthetic of cyberpunk.
Rail Gun
Designed initially as our sniper, but later adapted as our rail-gun. This weapon works as a high powered rifle where the base damage reduces player health by 70%, and each charge can boost the weapon to a full 100% damage; in consequence of a .3 delay between shots.
ROCKET LAUNCHER
Standard rocket launcher, five shots to fire and instantly kills players.
HEALTH/SWItCH
We never could implement the weapon switch between rocket and base weapon firing. However, I am pleased with the art direction- of the zygote health circle and the team’s desire for no health regeneration. This change provided open doors regarding my UI's minimalism.
Animations Will Be Uploaded Shortly
HUD Scenarios
When designing the HUD for a non-ADS centric shooter, I wanted to ensure the player’s focus was always towards the enemy they were firing at. Player UI should never be intrusive but continue to complement diverse gameplay.
GAMEOVER STATE [SCORE]
DEATH STATEs
BRAND DESIGN
My second role during this project was Brand Designer, where I focused on the game’s targeted brand language, reflected it in the game’s press kit, designed it’s logo, and published their public website.
I had a tough time grasping the complexity of the desired art direction because I never experienced blade runner. Nor did I understand many of the cyberpunk's aesthetic points. Over time I developed a visual board which was reviewed regularly for a better understanding of the intended visual goals of this project.
Final Direction
After severe refinement, I narrowed down the style/aesthetic to just five keywords: Alone, Dystopia, Grit, Survival, and Arabic/Quarry for the narrative.
Alone
Dystopia
GRIT
Survive
Arabic-Quarry
Effective Brand-Styles
In regards to the final brand Icon, We needed a model that could work well in black and white. Our icon required flexibility for use in a wide variety of key applications such as military patches. It also needed to be readable as an iconic symbol without logotype.
MENTAL MODEL
Pomegranate
With the advice of Daritza Perez, I looked into many symbolic references and found the pomegranate. I thought it was a playful metaphor for prosperity and abundance, the point of time where the earth is full of bloom and life rejoices.
Zygote
With the direction of my peers, we named the game Zygote, a stage where the fertilized egg and male sperm meet. Through this, I sought to replicate the multi-cell stage of the embryo where cells divide and into multiple divisions.
White Lotus
The white lotus a symbol of enlightenment, a goal for one to strive towards or the end of one’s spiritual journey. In my research, I found this to work very well as a visual metaphor for what the Military Visa’s represented and the end goal of rebirth inside one’s spiritual journey.
BRAND IN USE
FInal Logo Animations
FInal Logo Design
Zygotic Wordmark
The Logotype is a geometric sans-serif that pulls ties from titles such as alien, Ghosts in the Shell (2018), Black ops 3 to emphasize that futuristic, cyber-punk nature the game now embodies.
Design In Collaboration With Daritza Perez
Style one
With the Alpha build of our game, my team desired a cyberpunk gameshow aesthetic, and I sought out to use style to resemble loud shot calling.
OSWALD
We needed a typeface that reflected that loud punk aesthetic cyberpunk communicated to its audience. A very large and robust X-height, complemented with a condensed kerning.
ROBOTO-CONDENSED
As well as a complementing body copy where it feels very legible for information pop-outs and dynamic enough to fit the style. All stem are thin and equally balanced throughout the typography.
Style Two
With the style board, and refined, I managed to refresh the game’s design into a rustic, neon, cyberpunk aesthetic.
Monsterrat
I needed something futuristic, rustic, and feels somewhat cold in its typography. Montserrat works very elegantly but remains legible enough to play upon the contemporary ideas of the art direction provided.
OPEN SANS
Body Copy that was represented as visually technological, but could complement the replacement of Montserrat. Unfortunately, Roboto's high X-height affected menu and body legibility so open sans served as a helpful alternative.
TRUMP-SOFT [UI]
Upon the visual research, I found how essential it was to include a dynamic typeface for player legibility IN GAME, and how important it is to show the possible information on one line through using condensed fonts. Similar to titles such as overwatch, ETC.
A very great break from only designing applications and websites. The most exciting experience I have had for some time when designing. Meeting the end of a week was a constant challenge and took a lot effort for myself to improve.
In our struggles of iterative design (redesign level 4 times) I got to experience a different culture of work habits, where organization and clarity between goals worked themselves as the essential factors for a deadline being met on time.