Get the Fog Out
You have crash landed on a hostile alien planet, your only goal: Get the Fog Out!
A final year university project created for display at PAX Australia 2019 (11th-13th October), Get the Fog Out is a game where you must repair your ship and escape a foreign planet encased in a layer of hostile fog.
My role was as the sole UI designer and programmer in what is a very UI reliant game. Despite not being an artist, I was also the UI artist in order to allow the lead artist to focus on making 3D assets.
My goal was to maintain a consistent style and structure for the UI, while keeping it clean and simple. I also took on the role of Social Media Manager and have been in charge of adding content to the team's Twitter profile, as well as designing the panel for the PAX booth and the business cards.
Team
Liam Dunstan - UI Artist, Designer and Programmer / Social Media Manager / Graphics Artist
Josh Hardy - Producer / Designer / QA Lead
Michael Nuttall - Technical Artist
Nikkita Loney - 3D Artist
Sam Huffer - AI and Tutorial Programmer
Emily Cox - Creative Director / Writer / Designer
Cyrus Edgren - Lead Programmer
Matthew Germon - Programmer / Audio Engineer
David Sam - Programmer
James Latham - Composer
Concepts
Iteration 1 was about finding a design that worked. The team was keen on having the UI tucked into a corner to maximise screen real-estate, but the genre of game typically uses linear bars that go across the width of the screen.
The general design involved a bar/meter to convey the current levels of each resource type that was in the original design of the game, as well as an alert system for buildings being damaged and other issues. Finally there was a button to open a building menu.
The final design ended up as the linear bar, but as resources were removed and the idea of collecting ship parts was put forward, space was made in the UI to allow for displaying the collection status of those parts.
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Concept 4
Concept 5
Build menu concept
Final look in prototype
Iteration 2 was about refining the UI and providing some colour. Some of the feedback that was received mentioned moving the UI into the game world, not just clicking buttons on something that looked tacked-on.
The plan was to go with a kind of overlay that you might find on a screen within the ship, where you'd be controlling a drone. The top bar was cut and simplified with numbers replacing the bars entirely for the resources.
No variance was required in the concepts since the general design was not being altered, while shaping and colouring were not the priority.
Basic concept
Building status screen concept
Tile hover concept
Build menu concept
Objective complete concept
Final look in prototype
Iteration 3 was focused on a complete redesign of the UI to suit the screens to be used at PAX better. Due to players being rather close to the screen, a large majority of UI was being missed, so players tended to miss important information.
Moving the HUD down to the bottom, tied in together with a minimap, allowed for all of the UI to be in a place that players could easily see.
Finally, the UI was polished and improved for better feedback to players and more consistency.
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Ship screen concept
Upgrade screen concept
Final look in game