Don’t tell me how to play
By: Mousetrap Games
Tags: UX Design, Game Design, UX

Don’t tell me how to play

written by Karolina Staśkiewicz, Level Designer

Polish version here

The game and UX

Games are for everyone. Although I don’t know every person and I don’t want to evangelize society either, let the stone be thrown by someone who has never played tic-tac-toe, checkers, or solitaire. Although there is much more to the concept of “ a game” than that, the choice of title and form of the game (analog, digital, real-world) is entirely up to the player.

However, it is hard to disagree with the fact that nowadays the word “game” for most people primarily means video game.

The purpose of (video) games is, among other things, to provide players with emotions. Of course, they are not only positive, but hardly anyone wants to get frustrated while playing. Computer games are a form of interactive entertainment, which should be given to us in a pleasant and satisfying way. There are many elements of this experience, therefore different specialists, such as: programmers, game designers, concept artists, and UX/UI designers, must work on the game at the same time.

Each of the specializations is dynamically developing along with technological progress, but we will focus mainly on UX. Before we start, however, I would like to emphasize that, similarly sounding UX and UI, are separate specialties. They are very close to each other and often confused with each other — so let’s describe them in a nutshell.

A UI or User Interface Designer is responsible for aesthetic and visual issues in the project. They take care of the aesthetics and the visual side of the interface. The question the UI designer will ask themselves at work is: what will this button look like? (to be unambiguous and consistent with other elements of the interface).

A UX or User Experience Designer is responsible for the interaction with the game and player experience. They make sure that users can easily move around the game, to make it satisfactory and smooth in use and easily accessible for people with special requirements (visually impaired, deaf people). The question the UX designer will ask themselves at work is: where do we place this button? (for players to notice it).

UX focuses on the player’s perspective, experience, and emotions. Its task is to create an intuitive game, which is easy to discover and learn, and to take care of the consistency of UI in the game. All aspects of UX directly concern the player, so empathy is a very important feature for a UX designer. Additionally, well-made UX enhances immersion.

Conventions

You’ve probably started a game more than once and at first, it seemed very difficult to play or even to understand. The developers have this in mind and use many, more or less overt, tricks to make the introduction into the game smooth and even imperceptible. Although the first moments in the game are crucial (often they determine whether the player “swallowed the hook” and stays for longer), this does not mean that the fight for the player’s attention is over.

Players have been learning behaviors and patterns for years playing games… although from the UX point of view, it is rather games that adapt and are created taking into account players’ behaviors or mental models. Let me repeat, to be clear — we are not the ones learning to play games, it is the game that is supposed to be designed to predict our behaviors and make decisions easier.

As designers, we can rely on timeless truths, i.e. conventions, and here the rules are simple:

The color red is a warning and the spikes hurt;

The text is to be comprehensible and written in the player’s language;

The interface should be clear;

The contrast between the font and the background must be large enough so that the player does not get tired of reading;

The fonts are properly polished;

and much more.

Here I can safely say that “Good” UX is imperceptible — there are no differences between the message and its interpretation, and all actions taken are involuntary. If the solution you want to use is not imposed by the conventions, here intuition in prototyping and prototype playtests will be useful.

UX has components and each of them are equally important. The goal of each game is to evoke as many emotions as possible (which emotions already depend on the goal and motivation of the player), and UX supports this idea.

But is this UX necessary and does it determine the success of games? We will examine this in the following articles.