Amped-UX
  • Welcome
  • About
    • Endorsements
  • Portfolio
    • HD Game UX Design >
      • Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
      • Battlefield V
      • Lost Planet 3
      • Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
    • VR & AR UX Design >
      • Starblood Arena
      • World War Toons
      • Fire Escape
    • Web & Mobile UX Design >
      • Precision Digital Health
      • Stacks! Live Streaming Game Show App
      • Smart Events Mobile App
      • Vyndica Mobile Trading App
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Return to Top
  • Gamification Charts
  • Progression Streamlining
  • Team Challenge Mode
  • 3DS Connect
  • UI Density Tests
  • Macro Flowchart
  • HUD Concept Explorations
  • Controller Configuration Maps

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Sonic Boom - Rise of Lyric - Box Art - WiiU
Published by:  Sega, November 2014
Developed by:  Big Red Button Entertainment
Platforms:  Nintendo WiiU
Languages:    English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese
Tools & Tech:  Microsoft Visio 2013,  Adobe Flash,  CryEngine , Scaleform
Services Provided: 
  • UI/UX Design, Wireframes, and Project Management
  • Heads Up Display (HUD) UI Actionscripting 
  • Progression/Systems Design 
  • Localization Production & Integration

UX OBJECTIVES
The high-level objective was to create a  playful, super-simple UI for a younger, family-oriented demographic/persona that immersed players in the "mysterious, ancient" aesthetics of the game world.     
CONTROLLER CONSIDERATIONS
The unique nature of the WiiU Controller input device (aka the "DRC") presented both opportunities and challenges for UX Design.  Because the team believed our demographic preferred touch interfaces,  the UI needed to support both  the DRC touch screen and  traditional "button and d-pad" controls.    The UX Design also required support for  several  cooperative modes   and multiple control configurations.

GAMIFICATION  CHARTS

Picture
PRESS TO ENLARGE
BALANCING THE BIG PICTURE
This is a collection of charts and graphs  created in Google Sheets to illustrate  different types of collectible currencies and resource budgets across the whole single-player storyline of SONIC BOOM.  
 Systems Designers and "Gamification" professionals create tools like this to analyze progression and to craft longer emotional engagement cycles, stories, or feelings, such as scarcity, wanting, and abundance.  
Charts like these are also used to plan the likelihood that rewards or feelings of fulfillment and accomplishment will occur at certain points during the big-picture user experience of playing through the game's storyline.

STREAMLINED PROGRESSION SYSTEMS CHARTS

At one point in production, my instinct was  that the upgrade and user progression systems  made our users go through too many hoops. I thought a visual illustration of the conceptual sequence of events, currencies, items, and characters involved in an upgrade path and the rewards/payoffs, would help bolster my case. 
While this wasn't a user journey in the canonical sense, it served a similar purpose (illustrating user tasks vs. goals). The proposed chart removed cumbersome steps and persuaded members of the design team how to resolve lingering design questions, such as how users would obtain certain upgrades, how time or resources invested in one system would relate to progress in others, and how required pieces of downloadable content (DLC) fit into the progression systems.

"TEAM CHALLENGE" MODE HUD WIREFRAMES

COORDINATING  DISTRIBUTED UI DEVELOPMENT
The slideshow shows detailed "Heads Up Display" (HUD) designs for all three  co-operative "Team Challenge" modes.   The team outsourced production of  these   modes to  Denver, CO based developer Illfonic, who had deep experience with the Cryengine technology and multiplayer gameplay design.   For consistency, the team chose to  keep  the UX and graphic/UI design in-house at Big Red  Button (BRB) in Los Angeles, but we collaborated remotely with Illfonic on implementation.  All UI elements were programmed internally at BRB using Actionscript 2, Flash, and Scaleform, while Illfonic handled the back-end development. 
PRESS TO PLAY
TEAM CHALLENGE LOBBY AND HUD VIDEO AND CREDITS
This video shows how the  Team Challenge  user flow and UI elements  came together in the final  product (don't mind the commentary...it's not us!)
ART DIRECTION:  Bob Rafei
GRAPHIC DESIGN  AND  "SHELL" ACTIONSCRIPTING:    Andy Pursehouse
"HUD" ACTIONSCRIPTING:  Ed Moore
ENVIRONMENT ART & PROGRAMMING:  Illfonic
AUDIO:  Shane Kneip

"NINTENDO  3DS  CONNECT"  FEATURE  FLOW

HOW DOES THE 3DS CONNECT WORK?
Players with copies of both SONIC BOOM: RISE OF LYRIC   for WiiU and SONIC BOOM: SHATTERED CRYSTAL for Nintendo 3DS could share progress data across versions to unlock exclusive content.   
So, for example, if you completed the WiiU version, this would unlock some bonus content in the 3DS version, and vice-versa.   
The preceding flowchart illustrates this, keeping in mind  Nintendo first-party "Lotcheck" technical guidelines and  requirements (for terminology and error-checking)  into the UX  for both the WiiU and 3DS user flows.
Picture
Looking for UX Design or Gamification for your startup?  Subscribe and get your FREE 60-Page MINIMAL VIABLE UX PDF!

WII-U CONTROLLER TOUCHSCREEN UI DENSITY TESTS

DETERMINING UI DENSITY
When starting this game project, no members of the UI Team had any experience with the Wii U platform.  The team created some simple static image tests early in production to determine  a good balance between UI widget density and spacing for the DRC touch screen.


"MACRO"   FLOW  CHART

REPRESENTING STRATEGIC USER JOURNEYS
This chart is an in-progress snapshot depicting how a user progresses through the various levels of the game, illustrating a level-by-level breakdown of major plot beats, cinematics, upgrades, vehicle sequences, and character usage.     Initially, this information was maintained in a Google Sheet online (called a "Macro"), but  representing the "big picture" in a visual, colorful way was a better method to communicate the  strategic  game design and  narrative UX.   It may not be a literal "user journey" artifact in the traditional UX sense, but it served a similar purpose to build consensus around a product strategy.

HUD  CONCEPT  EXPLORATIONS

KEEPING IT SIMPLE
This shows some broad, early HUD concepts and  explorations focusing on button prompts and affordances to communicate how players can switch between characters. 

The concepts explored various ways of embedding other player status related feedback, such as rings, damage, and respawn times.


For many console video games, an important goal is to not clutter up the view of the environment art with UI.  Many of these UI  were intended to slide off the screen  and reappear only as needed.

CONTROL CONFIGURATION  MAPS

Sonic Boom - Controller Map Chart
PRESS TO ENLARGE
SUPPORTING MULTIPLE INPUT CONFIGURATIONS
While developing just for WiiU simplified many aspects of development, the controller maps needed to  support  several legacy controllers for the original Wii console across  multiple exploration and vehicle modes, including  "drop-in drop-out" two-player co-operative play.  


This chart depicts all of the controller map options for all possible modes and supported controllers.  Player 1 always sees their control options on  their personal DRC screen, while Player 2 views the controls on the TV.

RETURN TO HD GAME UX DESIGN
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.