The past few weeks have been very UI heavy. We knew we had to do something to give the players real-time feedback, so the gameplay would feel more intuitive. Ultimately, we decided to add more UI elements for the main battle scene itself. To do this, I created several sprites and worked closely with the UI team to achieve this goal. Our goal was to show the player what controls they had and, more importantly, what they do. With this in mind, I started making assets for the various controls, both for an Xbox controller and keyboard. I also added in visual elements to relay to the player what the controls did. For attack controls I included an illustration of an explosion with the "button" overlaid on top of it. For rotating controls I did the same thing, except with a rotation symbol located around the button control.
The current plan is to have these controls overlaid the bot parts themselves during the in-game gameplay. We also plan on making the controls translucent until pressed by the player so the screen doesn't feel cluttered. This, of course, will need to be tested and play-tested in order to see how natural it feels for the average player.
UI aside, the team is also currently working on a wide variety of models pertaining to the environment as well as weapons and utilities. One of these models is the axe weapon that I have developed over the past week. The axe has unique functionality, and will add interesting twists to the overall gameplay.
- Carter Nelson, artist from the Duol Bots Team
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