Sci-fi Open World Survival
- Lead Game Design & UI Design
- Involvement: ♥ ♥ ♥ • •
- Release: 2016
During my last months at Abstraction Games, there were 2 projects revolving around Ark: Survival Evolved. A huge hit on Steam Early Access and Xbox One, Abstraction Games was asked to port the game to PlayStation®4.
The first project involved the concept development and prototyping of a VR incarnation of Ark. For this I first researched everything there was to know about Virtual Reality, it’s advantages and disadvantages and the 2016 “current state” of affairs. Oculus and HTC Vive just released their first headset and PlayStation®VR still needed to launch and first steps in VR had been taking by other companies.
We created several VR prototypes in Unreal Engine 4, focusing on scale, usability and naussea-effects. One of the most simple prototypes actually worked pretty well, which just showcased the dinosaurs in a virtual exhibit, which allowed the player to fully appreciate the scale and details of the Ark models.
The second project was the development of the menu overhaul, which really needed to be overhauled as they were a mess. There was no on-boarding or any guidance for new players, important items were hidden and less important items were featured prominently. There was a lot to gain by carefully dissecting the menu’s, understanding the player priorities and rebuilding the complete menu’s from scratch.
I created several proposals for a new look and feel and together with Gijs de Jong developed visual prototypes in an effort to convince Studio Wildcard to let us develop the much needed improvements. Below are a couple of sneak peaks of one of our visual prototypes.
In the design for the overhaul, I made sure the interactions supported both mouse and gamepad player inputs and created a flow that guided the player intuitively through all the options. We also made sure that the menu kept true to the fact that it’s a hologram, by creating subtle dynamic holographic effects in the backgrounds.
Although I haven’t witnessed the final implementation, I later learned that the team eventually got the OK to continue and develop the menu overhaul which was released recently.
Tj'ièn 