Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 4 - The Best and Worst of Video Game Graphic Design ~ Design Doc

[@Lugmillord]

Hmm, yes, I noticed some subtle differences in Journey's and Gungnir's UI design.

[@azuarc]

You mean, like that Gungnir has a UI, and Journey puts a game on the screen instead?

[@IvanNOFX]

Gungnir = UI: The Game

[@brandonwithnell612]

wait there was a game under all that????

[@hotarumirairin]

Honestly I prefer every stat being thrown at me than a simple digestible scarf I don’t know about you guys

[@lamegamertime]

@@hotarumirairin Yeah, but you aren't having every stat given to you if you can't tell what it's saying.

[@witchfynder_finder]

"Can you spot the UI problems in Gungnir?" I feel like I have to be able to parse any amount of information before I can identify individual problems so, technically, no.

[@spindash64]

I can't spot anything BUT the UI in Gungnir

[@bluethan806]

I dozed off a bit and woke up at 14:30 genuinely looking for the "Skip Ad" button

[@djoshawott2850]

That is the strangest yet most accurate thing I've read, today...

[@jocatpersonalchannel8924]

good graphic design means no one has to get used to it

[@Silversky1113]

Hit the nail on the head. It should be something that flawlessly presents information instead of something you have to learn to decipher. Hate it when video games give you homework. This also applies to other things though. The "you get used to it" or "it gets better" excuses are not good enough.

[@SampoPaalanen]

@@Silversky1113 The best way I would describe it is that good graphic design is companion and mentor in your journey, while bad graphic design is an obstacle you need to overcome. Only time I would say "you get used to it" is valid explanation in game design is when dealing with advanced gameplay mechanics and even then only if it's due to the gameplay being that way no matter what and not due to bad design.

[@artman40]

Same with website design and especially redesign.

[@alfredwinchesterjr]

@@artman40 Sounds true for any design... I guess if you make something to do something some rules can overlap no matter what you're trying to do. Keep it simple, functional and doing what you want?

[@BVSSIC]

@@Silversky1113 Well, yeah, but then there's fez which homework is (if you don't do any research online of course) the appeal of the game in that sense.

[@noctiscuadro6983]

Gungnir has more arrows than most clickbait thumbnails.

[@mlfan5986]

No joke, my eyes were watering by the end of your presentation of Gungnir. Or bleeding, one of the two.

[@DesignDoc]

Probably both.

[@criptych]

Blood is mostly water, after all.

[@LuckySketches]

Gungnir is just Menu: The Game. ...on hard mode.

[@Pra97911]

If all games had a UI like gungnir, I wouldn't be wasting nearly as much time as I do on games.

[@Bane_Amesta]

It almost like trying to read a specially difficult math book, in my opinion D:

[@Vik1919]

It's not wasting, it's spending your time. Wasting time would be if you didn't enjoy video games but since we clearly do, it is NOT wasting time but spending.

[@MrSilentProtagonist]

If all games had UI like Gungnir, I would treat being a game designer as a mental disorder.

[@Zelkiiro]

Gungnir hurts to look at. The artwork is fine, if middling, but those boxes and arrows and fonts and God I can't tell what anything even is for.

[@Stephen-Fox]

It has a piece of text in transparent on transluscent white on lightened patch during the video he showed. Never mind anything else, how did that come across as a good idea to anyone?

[@SingeScorcher]

Right? xD when watching that segment I couldn't help but make the mental comparison to Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance on GBA. All of the same information presented in a less busy, much more readable format. Stats: Bottom Left. Menu: Bottom Right. Character portrait: Next to Stats. Enemy stats/Portrait: Same as Menu when you're not using it. Ability names: top middle and smaller so you can watch the on screen action. And NONE of this information appears unless you put your cursor in over the element in question or bring up the menu. Even the simple act of moving is easier to watch. Both games use blue tiles to show where you can move, Gungnir needs to make a faded clone of your character sprite replace your cursor when moving. FFTA lets you just point to the blue tile and click. It honestly looks like Gungnir was worried you would miss out on pertinent information so it has 2+ redundant methods of giving that info. Resulting in it being harder to see that info overall.

[@Stephen-Fox]

@@SingeScorcher The comparison in my head was Disgaea, with similar results. Showing portraits of everyone involved in a group attack is something both games do - But Disgaea iirc takes the rest of the information off the screen to show you the cool flashy stuff you earned, then fades the general info back while displaying the damage rather than trying to display... Everything. Always.

[@BigattckFirecat]

If you slow the video down, you can see that the player wanted the character to attack, give boost and not let the other character attack. very simple rpg strategy game, what this youtuber doesn't not understand is that many people played these kinds of strategy games with the same UI. This is completely normal, if you remove it then it means less options and worst gameplay.

[@Zelkiiro]

@@BigattckFirecat It most certainly is not simple. Disgaea (1) is simple. Final Fantasy Tactics is simple. La Pucelle is simple. Gungnir is just madness.

[@oldDNU]

I can't stand the trend of minuscule fonts. It's not just games, but on TV once HD gained prominence. HD was supposed to make everything clearer, but the designers use that opportunity to make the text smaller so it's just as illegible as it was before. The small text on Switch isn't limited to Hover. Dead Cells has the PC-style presentation that never looks good on a console, and Rocket League's menus and chats are way too small in console mode (though works pretty well in portable mode).

[@Lugbzurg]

UGH, YES. This drives me crazy, as well. And it's not just text. HUD icons in games are needlessly-tiny as well!

[@ThePreciseClimber]

It has gotten so bad, the PS4 now features a built-in screen zoom feature. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3fSo6yLasuoaMU

[@Lugbzurg]

What about the Switch? Imagine playing some of these games in Handheld Mode.

[@StuCupid]

I remember getting GTA V back when it first launched on PS3 and 360 and I had trouble reading the tiny arse text, shame it has become a bit of a trend

[@oldDNU]

@@Lugbzurg Depends on the game. In Rocket League, the font is perfectly sized in portable mode, but reduced to bottom-line-on-an-eye-chart levels of tiny in console mode.

[@naenoart]

I clicked on this video 12 seconds after it got uploaded, haha. These six design lessons were really varied and interesting! Also, your “Good/Bad Design” title designs are hilarious and you even individually design them for each video, respect for that level of dedication. I LOVE your videos so much! I always feel like I learned something and I’m always looking forward to the next video!

[@DoctorPhileasFragg]

I'm probably not the first to think of the Good Idea, Bad Idea sketch from Animaniacs, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

[@Klausebou]

As a graphic designer myself I’am really glad this series exists, I love it. Rare to find so well produced content on these issues, let alone done so entertaining. Good work! Now go and make more! :-)

[@DesignDoc]

can do

[@SuperLlama42]

I remember trying to play an RPG Maker game and I had to stop an hour in because the person who made it had absolutely no idea how to pace written dialogue, so conversations were delivered in gigantic walls of text that were an absolute slog to read through.

[@KuraIthys]

Lol. Speaking of RPG maker, the UI on most versions of that I've tried is atrocious. That includes 3 different PC versions from vastly different eras, as well as two versions that got released on Super Famicom. Granted I'm not capable of really understanding japanese, but looking at how the UI fit together it was still clearly an absolute mess and knowing how to read the language involved wouldn't really have helped much... I'm amazed anyone can even build ANYTHING worthwhile with such extremely borked tools...

[@SproutFarms]

@@KuraIthys it's less about the tool (yes, you trade power for ease of useability with this engine) but more people trying to reinvent the wheel. There are lots of good, perfectly working ressources out there available for free without even needing to mention them but "that's just stealing". Most UIs for RPG Maker will however have that GBA feel to them (which I myself find rather appealing).

[@jeromealday614]

I remember making games on it when I was 10 years old lol

[@BlueBladeofFate]

@ SuperLlama42 I'm curious, what was the game called?

[@crazycharmanderfan]

Tbh seeing you talk about Gungnir UI made me think about why Fire Emblem games on GBA have very simple and effective UI. I honestly like how they don't make things cluttered and used colors well enough to show who's the players, the enemies, and the NPC's. Plus, when you view the characters' stats when preparing to attack, they give you things like attack, crit, type of weapon, how many times the weapons can be used, etc. It all felt so clean and concise that it made me really get into it. I normally don't get into tactical RPG's because others feel too cluttered and slow but Fire Emblem GBA really nailed it for fast-paced gameplay.

[@AgentLayla526]

Honestly, Fire Emblem's battle UI is one of those things that's hardly changed over two decades, and that's a clear sign that something's gone right.

[@bld9826]

I played a good chunk of Gungnir and I actually really like it, but you hit the nail on the head here. Fire Emblem approaches UI and gameplay in a way that's simple and intuitive. One thing I actually hate in most other SRPGs is simply the isometric perspectives. I understand they help show off character models better, and on very rare occasions are used for 3D environments, like a bridge stretching over ground, but it's not intuitive to press up, and go up-diagonal instead. I've gotten used to it, of course, but to paraphrase another comment- why should I have to?

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

Fire Emblem 5's UI is horrendous, though for a very different reason than the ones this video talks about. What's worse than having hard-to-read information? Well information that flat-out isn't told to you but needed to play the damn game. In chapter 18, when you have to recruit a certain character by going through an excruciatingly long and overly specific sequence of events that is super easy to mess up even when you do know them by heart. I don't want to say much more w/o spoiling the rest of that chapter, but the most important problem is that you don't know which green NPC is supposed to talk to which enemy armor knight. Nothing in the game hints at it, you can't talk to the NPCs to figure the names of the red NPCs, the characters don't even have the same hair color. It is a nightmare to even figure what you are supposed to do to recruit this character, but executing it is another nightmare altogether.

[@bld9826]

@@anirudhviswanathan3986 I don't disagree that FE 5 is a travesty of game design, but I wouldn't call that UI. Remember, this is the same game that has a fog of war map with trap tiles (that look like any other tile) that send your units into the fuck-room where they get swarmed to death unless you haven't run out of rescue staves this late into the game. My point being, it's not really a failing of the UI (although that's definitely aged) - the UI is working exactly as it was intended to. It's just some knucklehead Shozou Kaga thought it'd be funny to not give the player information.

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

BLD I will still say that ch 18 is partly a UI problem. Why? Because the Lenster Knights look exactly as other knights mixed in the throne room, only differs in their portraits, which you won't always see given this map is very hectic and there are several things to deal with before you start to recruit Xavier. It is so easy to accidentally have that wrong knight(ie non Lenster) get stuck at the chokepoint(you only have so many sleep staff uses and long range tomes, who have much more important uses later in the game) and mess up your entire plan. I just don't even try to recruit Xavier in FE5 because of this. And why did Kaga decide not to put PCC, an important stat that actually makes critical hits an essential strategy on the character sheet? Even chapter 3 told us which green NPC must go to which village. Chapter 18 is a nightmare, to say nothing of 24x and 16B.

[@SawyerFriend]

Bad Design: *shows footage from Nier Automata* I almost had a heart attack lol

[@UnexpectedGamer7]

Holy crap, the graphic design of that last game on the list. I had no idea it was even possible for a game to look so convoluted. It almost looks like it's supposed to be a parody xD

[@dav967]

showing the bad design title card and Nier right after threw me for such a loop like "BOY YOU DON'T WANNA GO THERE" lmao

[@DesignDoc]

Don't worry, Automata has a good design segment in Vol. 3

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

Design Doc What about the first Nier?

[@theinfantmetroid]

Okay now thats just clickbaiting. How am I supposed to NOT click when Samus is on the thumbnail

[@lyokomajor]

How is it clickbaiting when the 1st thing he goes over is Metroid Prime?

[@ddnava96]

@Nich. Basically use BAIT to make people CLICK it. I don't get how anyone could not know it

[@nostalgiafuelsmylife]

I hated Hover for the first hour or two, but once I got the hang of it I loved the gameplay. The UI however.... is horrendous just like you said, it got to the point where I completely ignored it. The arrow at the bottom of the screen and the energy bar were really all that was needed during play, everything else could have been tucked in the pause menu, honestly. If they fixed some of the problems like that and got rid of the whole "EPIC GAMERZ" schtick then it would have been something really special.

[@elitheadmin3672]

Yah the gamerz thingis odd but the games great except for the final boss

[@k3nnykid]

I used "/hide hud" when played it. Much better experience. I love this game but ui is really horrible.

[@Stephen-Fox]

On Pyre, just from the clip you showed - The moving of the name prompt based on who's talking when two characters are on screen at once. That's a really neat technique to quickly show the player who's talking right now, and connect a name to a face, I don't recall seeing before. (Though, to be fair, visual novels aren't something I play a lot of outside of the huge crossover ones - mainly the first couple of Ace Attorneys, the three numbered Danganronpas, and the first six Professor Laytons there, so that might have become a genre standard that I just missed) On Gungear... Did... Did they use white on a light coloured background for some of the text? Wait, no, it's transparent on semi-transparent white on a general lightened patch of the screen. Which is somehow worse. And displaying important numeric battle info while showing a character portrait and quote more prominently. (Was expecting you to wait at least 8 days for putting out a new Good Design, Bad Design, though, what with you covering both Brawl (under good design) and 4 (under bad design) prior)

[@Exel3nce]

just because it was already mentioned here, how about doki doki?

[@rokr0001]

Actually, Fire Emblem does that thing with the nameplates as well. They also make the speaker's portrait brighter than the other displayed portraits. It's most prominent in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (the 3DS titles don't have more than two speakers on screen outside of animated cutscenes).

[@MrSTVR]

Hover was the last game I crowdfunded and the UI was so bad it was the reason I dropped the game after an hour. Would need a hell of an overhaul to get me to go back to it.

[@KoalaTContent]

The UI sucks but at least the game itself plays well in my experience.

[@richardtickler8555]

@@KoalaTContent apart from selecting your options with a controller on pc. cmon you have shit cluttered in some grid-ish style let me hop between the options instead of using the joystick like a mouse ffs i didnt read the story bits since i cant be bothered with the text boxes and the banter was boring pretty quickly

[@KoalaTContent]

@@richardtickler8555 Embrace the superiority of the mouse

[@richardtickler8555]

@@KoalaTContent i prefer to play games like hover with a controller. For shooter, rts and games with more functions i take the mouse

[@alejandrob5091]

I love how last of us handled it's version of "detective version". Your forced to crouch and only shows outlines of enemies.

[@joshuadeck5270]

Same with Assassin's Creed Origins/Odyssey. Where eagle vision was replaced with you having to scan for enemies beforehand.

IMO Horizon Zero Dawn has one of the best implementations. It makes sense in-story (it's Aloy's AR "Focus" device - in the brief segments when she doesn't have it, it's inaccessible), slows you down to a crawl when using it in active mode (so you're not tempted to just leave it turned on), and only limited information can be carried over from the active mode to the passive mode (enemies are tracked with small markers once you tag them, but only one robot's tracks can be highlighted at a time).

[@Brass319]

I think Monster Hunter World does it the best. If you stay within a certain good sized radius of pretty much any interactable for a couple seconds, your scoutflies will highlight it and it tells you what's there on the side of the screen. You still have to track the monsters yourself, this is just so you don't mistake a healing herb for a normal bush and to help players learn about things like poisoncup plants intuitively.

[@thesuperthingymabob8209]

I LOVE Metroid Prime's UI. It's so good!

[@Lugbzurg]

The user interface of Metroid Prime is most likely the reason I felt more symbiotic with Samus than the protagonist of probably every other first-person game I've ever played.

[@sparrowfox6943]

"What if Samus had a bug's head?" Either Miyamoto has ADHD/ADD, or was tripping balls that day. Either way, I hope his quirks never change

[@freindlessversion2.021]

14:20 "It doesn't look that bad, just not the most pleasent thing to look at" 14:22 " *_AH FUCK, MY EYES_* "

[@alanpapercuts3717]

You know what would be good design? If the Design Doc playlist was in order of release, instead of most recent at the top.

[@vitchb.2463]

I love this series soo much. Such good information and analysis

[@MsChisana]

I'm learning so much through these videos. ive never really thought too hard about how just important graphic design is in presenting a game before, it's really fascinating

[@theflamelord]

When he did the gungnir pop quiz my first thought was "Okay there is way to much on screen right now", I was so overwhelmed by how much bullshit they crammed into the UI i literally couldn't see the other problems, I got a headache trying to parse what i was looking like

[@migueeeelet]

On that last sentence (on how good graphic design can be subtle), bad graphic design instead stands out like a sore thumb

[@bananabike279]

Man, these video series really is an eye opener for me! I suddenly want to dive into a bunch of old games and look at their graphic design! :o

[@everettewebber5680]

On a side note some of the best solutions I've seen to the detective mode problem can be found in Arkham Knight and The Last of Us Part 2. In Arkham Knight at some point in the game enemies start to be able to track you while you are in your detective mode. The seems to appear randomly with little explanation but provides a good balancing act of gathering information and staying hidden. The longer your in detective mode the more information you can get but the more likely you'll be found. In The Last of Us Part 2 you detective mode is instead called the listen mode. In it you can see enemies through walls just like any other detective mode. But it has some nice trade offs. First your movement speed is heavily reduced well in this mode, you can get upgrades later to remove this but it is still a trade off. Second, unlike The Last of Us Part 1 where enemies where clearly outlined in listen mode, in part 2 they are instead just loose blobs meaning it can be hard to tell what type of enemies it is. Third is that how clearly you can see the enemies in listen mode is directly tied to how much noise they make. A cautious enemy will be harder to spot than a regular enemy, and a hiding enemy is almost invisible to your listen mode. Finally in the game you can usally hear more from the games own audio than the info you usually get from your listen mode.

[@Solgilou]

As a Design student, I really love this series

[@ryansandwich1086]

I understood just how bad the UI was for Gungnir when I realized that I couldn't find on the screen some of the things you were talking about.

[@Melecie]

personally, the story mode’s level map of just shapes and beats (2018) is a nice one since unlike most game’s maps, the story happens in the map and not just the levels inside. maybe cover it?

[@linky8038]

i've played journey about 5 times now at it makes me cry every time. it's beautiful

[@nevertrumpfromthejump]

As always, amazing content! I hope your videos dont slow down too much but i understand the obstacles of a content creator juggling other responsibilities and whatnot. Hope you keep the channel alive. Cant wait for the next video!

[@Nintendoholic2404]

So glad KZbin recommended me to your latest Good Design, Bad Design video! Video games were also a major influence in my decision to become a graphic designer (particularly thatgameco's games which became one of my final year uni projects) and a desire for good UI has influenced my preference for Nintendo-style games imo (though many multi-platform games do a great job too of course). You've got yourself a new subscriber, look forward to your future uploads :)

[@CrokeyHigati]

Definitely still my favorite videos you create. You can learn so much from whats done wrong in a UI and UX design. I learning to be a game dev and I would love if I could share some of my own Menus and interfaces with you one day to get some feedback. But regardless, I look forward to your next video!

[@ActingNT]

Another nice detail in Journey is that the energized and non-energized sections of the scarf contrast with each other, making it easy to tell how much flight energy you have left

[@Nedas21]

Your vids are always both entertaining and informative to watch. Such a pleasure!

[@lewilewis9812]

Your videos strike the perfect balance of entertaining and informative keep it up and I will keep watching and liking every one. Nice work

[@dinar8749]

I'm making my own game and I find your videos quite helpful!

[@ezequielherzog7745]

Hey, awesome video as always! As a suggestion to next videos, I'd love to see you talking about Disgaea 5. I think the game's design is a good example of "I have a lot of informations to tell but they are organized"

[@Silversky1113]

Every time i see a new video i just know I'm gonna learn something neat. Thanks for this series. Keep up the amazing work.

[@Prototype729]

Just stumbled upon your channel and watched all four videos from this series. I'm looking forward to exploring the rest of your channel. Earned yourself a sub! Keep up the good work!

[@DesignDoc]

Thank you very much! Glad that you enjoy the channel.

[@spindash64]

Gungnir just makes me think of the Dating HUD gag in Undertale, where a bunch of completely unrelated UI elements are added: weather, crime rates, Sega Bass Fishing...

[@joelbeams6452]

Never have I clicked so fast on a video. Really great analysis, keep up the good work. P.S. Have you had a look at the UI of the Valkyria Chronicles series? I think there are some really nice elements to it that could do with a video on it

[@Halbmond]

I think Mirror‘s Edge‘s „runner vision“ is one of the best executions of detective vision.

[@CiaranDeNaMasc]

In Gugnir's defence, you gotta consider culturas diferences, and I don't mean that in the usual "japan is weird" kinda way. If you played enough japanese games you'll have noticed that kind of overcrowded design is pretty common, and not just games, if you ever had to browse through a japanese website you'll notice even high brow "serious" sites tend to be... well... a mess. (seriously, go look for the NHK's site, it's the national news agency, designed to communicate to the entire nation, and even though I understand the language, I struggle every time i have to look through it) Thing is, the japanese gaze, that is, the movement the eyes tend to follow naturally when looking at a page or a scene, moves counter to what we in the west consider normal. We "read" scenes like books, ussually starting from the most eye catching thing in the scene, then moving from left to right first, then on to the next line, top to bottom. Well a japanese book is read from top to bottom FIRST, and the next line moves from RIGHT to LEFT. Did I mention they regularly use both, vertical and horizontal script? Becasue they do! And the reading lines goes completely different depending which they are using! Plus kanji is completely different from latin letters. A single kanji can be anything from just a syllable to an entire word depending on context, and specially depending on what kanji comes previous and next. If you consider japanese is very often written both vertically and horizontally, sometimes even in the same page, imagine you suddenly have a "grid" of kanji to read, you wouldn't easily be able to tell in which direction you are supposed to read. So what they do is use different typefaces to differentiate words from each other, so they don't meld together into one nonsensical thing. I can't provide any backup for that, aside from the questionable logic of the explanation I just gave, but I'm pretty sure that's the reason they use so many typefaces, and translators having no idea just keep the mess after changing the language to maintain the look. Even games that use straight english, since they are designed with a japanese mindset, they might accidental use the same ideas even if they don't really work.

[@ItsNotFilia]

I don't think that bloat counts as a cultural difference - it's just a bad means of delivering information, something totally not specific to Japanese games alone.

[@juniormatsuda5116]

CiaranDeNaMasc there are some good games UI from Japan also. It isn't because Japan's UI are awfully bad that you should accept it as good, it can and need to be improved to improve their players experience. Persona 5 and Zelda:BOTW shows great UI coming from Japan.

[@jomon324]

I personally love the explosively colorful and hectic designs of the Dept Heaven UI series. Simply reading the description of a card in Yggdra Union or using a techique in Riviera feel powerful because ARCHAIC XENOFLARE [][][][][][][][_destruct_type] |==============| +AGI +MAG +OVRLMT -CON ...boost chance 00035.00% Stuff like that looks like some frenetic machine or wizard’s runic spells, but once you learn what all the bars and stuff actually mean, you can execute devastating attacks with prowess and finesse. St!ng does a fantastic job at making their UI stuff feel like studying actual magic or sword techiques.

[@somewhatsomehow1491]

@@jomon324 i feel like the whole hectic design like dept. heaven or tsukihime/type-moon in general use with their gibberish nonsense is probably the fault of neon genesis evangelion to some extent. that aside, while i do have some soft spot for those hectic "description", most of the time i still think the localization team just went full ham a tad bit too much with the font choice, giving every single UI element a different font, even if they should be categorized as one information, is just tiring to the eyes

[@jomon324]

pwndhrd prtyhrd you should see the Japanese versions. Yggdra Union on GBA is borderline illegible in JP, haha.

[@jgjg5182]

"There's no reason to turn detective mode off" your bleeding eyes are reason enough

[@Naixatloz]

"beautiful games can have bad graphic design" [shot of Xenoblade X] XCX may be one of my top 3 favorite games, but by god its UI is such a chore to grapple with that I hope you cover it in this series someday.

[@AlfonsoSRT]

Menus within menus... But at least I guess it teaches you better how to play it than XC2.

[@Naixatloz]

It absolutely does not, oh my god. Actually my biggest complaint about X is that it's absolutely garbage at teaching important concepts.

[@litarogers3984]

You should look at devil may cry 3, as a good and bad design. The style meter is good as is most of the ui. but the title screen is horrendous, and tuhe save select is set up so that if you play Vergil after beating the game the first time, you will probably delete the freshly beaten save, and all of it's extra difficulty's and modes and costumes.

[@rja4niy]

Video game design is the type of series I was looking for. Keep up the good work

[@stevethepocket]

The popup boxes have returned in _Hades_ and it's honestly one of my favorite things about it. Highlight an ability upgrade on the list of ones to pick from, and boxes appear on the right reminding you what the relevant stats are for. Always. No matter how long you've been playing. Just in case.

[@Oznerock]

Been a while. Always like me some UI. Okay, interesting. The UI for Metroid and Pyre in particular were very nicely dissected.

[@xirogame]

I love your videos! I am an artist and I can tell that these have been pretty useful in my understanding of balance in general. Thanks Design Doc!

[@DesignDoc]

No prob!

[@EqualsN]

Hey, first time watching this video. Good stuff. I agree with the points you made, though I think some topics deserve having their own video. I'd love to see you do a video on typesetting. You seem like you'd be a perfect person to discuss the subject.

[@Cooliex1986]

I think the game that is closest to fixing the "detective mode" issue is the Tomb Raider reboot series. Lara's survival instincts (detective mode) does the same thing but you have to stay COMPLETELY STILL or it disappears. This allows you to look for the highlighted items, and know what's interactive without sacrificing the world in an ugly palette. It's one of the reasons why I praise the games for finding that solution since I also found the Arkham games fun yet annoying since you always felt like you had to have detective mode on. Great video!

[@dragontamer7371]

I think Hover is a fun game but it's UI does annoy me greatly. And that map... Jet Set Radio Future had pretty bad map, but at least I knew where I was. Hover's map only tells me where I am from a bird's eye view, it doesn't tell me anything else.

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

*sees Gungir's UI* *proceeds to bash head in wall*

[@KumaDeeOniOni]

The transition at 8:48 got me really confused for a second until he started explaining things lmao

[@ShinyKyu]

Once you started taking about Detective Vision, I almost expected you to talk about or show a clip of P5, even though you’ve already made a huge segment on P5 previously XD

[@WillowEpp]

Glad to see more people looking critically at game UI/UX design. In the vein of changes from Arkham Asylum to its sequel, a particular... "fascinating case study" if you will, that I've been following for a long time is Capcom's Monster Hunter series, which tends to bring major improvements with release, but sometimes introduces weird papercut regressions for seemingly no reason. A good example is the chat. Monster Hunter shines best as a multiplayer game where groups of four players don't traditionally NEED to communicate complex thoughts while out on a hunt. But MH3 had the option available for an on-screen (or USB) keyboard, and it was very useful at times. MH4, despite being on a system with a touchscreen instead of a Wii, removed that, only giving the full keyboard between hunts and restricting you to 18 canned phrases otherwise. To be fair, you shouldn't be typing much while hunting, but it's a removal that tends to chafe more than you'd expect when you can't take a down moment to tell the newbie "roll to get rid of slime" without having anticipated someone whose never seen a Brachydios and spent a precious canned message on telling them how to avoid blowing up. I'll bet it'd be interesting to look at more game series and how they improve (or don't) throughout their run.

[@jomon324]

Wyatt Epp the 3DS gets chat removed in pretty much everything it has ever existed in, and I think that’s a safety precaution Nintendo took so that the Swapnote/Miiverse disaster wouldn’t repeat itself. (People using the chat as a way to have cyber sex). It’s unfortunate, but I can see why they’d restrict it to canned phrases.

[@WillowEpp]

@@jomon324 Read it again: you can still use the keyboard between hunts. They didn't remove it entirely. And the canned phrases, to clarify, can be customised.

[@memesxy95]

there is one "detective vision" I real enjoy in Mark of the Ninja, where you can see enemies and interactive objects through walls, but you can't move while using it

[@RaoulWB]

Great and useful video as always. All these tips to me basically serve as a great way to question if I'm doing my design good, and I love that.

[@armandduchatel8644]

Love this series, hope there will be other "Good Design, Bad Design", thanks

[@MforMovesets]

10:33 Same with Syndicate 2010, where slow motion, which you constantly use, turns the whole world black and white, showing the enemies completely in orange. Which means you don't really see the friggin action. And they made the game gory, whats the point of a gory game if you can't see the gore.

[@aguywithgames3135]

Funny how I was completely blind to Gungnir’s design problems and just rolled with it like it was normal. Past me needed this video.

[@Amixus]

I am playing Metroid Prime in VR at the moment. This game holds up in VR so well, you don't even notice it being made 15 years ago.

[@rizu-kun9687]

I like what Silent Hill 2 does in terms of highlighting interactables in a more realistically designed environment. If there's an item or something James can interact with, he turns his head to look at it. It's not perfect by any means and you can miss things if you're not careful, but it's a good way to indicate items to the player without shattering immersion.

[@BlueLightningSky]

You could give detective vision or omniscient mode a cool down or meter that regenerates that usually solves everything by just making it not spammable. Use it when you get stuck but never leave it on forever. And for stealth games I think this a great benefit if you could only use it once in a room. The problem is that it removes the tension for stealth. You know every position of the enemy so you don't feel like you're hiding but more like you're just finding the route to kill everyone. Early Metal Gear games had the same problem on normal and it wouldn't be until the re-release of MGS3 where we truly felt like avoiding guards instead of avoiding the dots on the radar. Other games like MGSV strikes an interesting implementation of this. You have to spot enemies and items first before getting detective vision. But I still think spotting it much easier than the reward for doing so. I would ditch detective mode and just let you track enemies through your map which you have to stop and open up in real time. Detective mode in stealth games should be kept to a minimum because an overuse of it leads to the game playing itself. Wasn't it cool in dishonored how you can look through a keyhole or lean from a corner without being seen? So why do we have an easy brain dead solution that's completely unnecessary?

[@Camkitsune]

I'm probably going to steal some of the techniques on display in Pyre if I can pimp-slap RPG Maker into supporting them - having the additional info display on mouse-over is a _lot_ more elegant than just displaying it in an extra menu item squirreled away in the menu.

[@Grozdor]

Yoooo, I just found your channel and your contents are top notch!

[@goast_cuard]

I'd recommend giving a look at A Hat in Time (DLC included). I really enjoyed the game, but there are so many little issues - mostly inconsistent and distractingly flashy graphic design - that it gets progressively harder to read what's going on.

[@DesignDoc]

Hat in time does have communication and polish problems though I’m not entirely certain if I would blame that on the UI specifically. It’s a lot of little things that make it slightly more difficult to play. Though I will agree that the UI does fail hard in helping you navigate the cruise ship in the DLC. It takes a long time to learn that ship’s layout and those way point arrows do nothing to help you get to where you need to go.

[@goast_cuard]

@@DesignDoc Thanks for the input, totally agree. Though, I did have in mind more the visual communication of gameplay than the UI. You did briefly talk about that kind of stuff every now and then for bad examples, so I thought it appropriate to bring it up.

[@kotrena]

The UI in Metroid Prime reminds me how amazing the cockpit in X2: The Threat was

[@TurtleComputerNerd]

Black Light: Retribution had a version of detective vision called Hyper Reality Vision (HRV). It was one of the things that made me love that game, before the PS4 version and the problems that came to PC with it. HRV replaces a minimap. You can't use it all the time, and while using it you can't shoot. With armor and weapon mods you can decrease the time it takes to enter and exit HRV, increase it's capacity, and decrease it's recharge time.

[@ama4121]

I love this video series so much. Thank you for your work!

[@xeno4445]

3:40 us gamers need to rise up

[@IONATVS]

The distinction you make between UI/UX design and the rest of the art design in games is a good illustration of the difference between two fundementally different schools of art: the fine and practical arts. I would argue that *all* art is ultimately about communication, but practical arts (or "crafts"), like architecture, cooking, sword-smithing and graphic design, must *also* perform a specific, concrete function--so the form must be judged, at least in part, by how well it achieves that function. Fine arts like painting, literature, and music (and video games, when considering the work as a whole, not the elements that make it up), on the other hand, usually need only consider the (often very abstract) message they want to convey and what stylistic choices can best convey it--and with an abstract message like "this character is awesome" or "something is amiss" or "FEEL ALL THE FEELS!!!" the artist has a lot more freedom with how to convey that message, and often do so most effectively through implication, metaphors, and symbolism. But a house that can't be lived in or a piece of food that doesn't feed you or a sword that's too heavy to wield, or a user interface that is hard to parse are just so much useless *stuff*. ...And then there are the ones that fail as BOTH a work of art and a practical tool!

[@MathieuBouvier]

mmm. the Pyre example seems a bit weird. It did not play the game - but from what you show here, it seems hard to read? First, the book that you are flipping the page over - you say in has a gorgeous typography...yeah, it is gorgeous. But to me it is mainly plain unreadable? Same goes for the VN part, the font seems to be so small - especially since the box is so huge (and that also looks very weird and not aesthetic to me). I know it's just a quick sample, but from I see, I wouldn't be able to comfortably sit thru the game without straining my eyes.

[@AkuTenshiiZero]

The closest thing I have found to a "good" detective vision system is in Styx: Shards of Darkness. You do have a similar ability that highlights guards, collectibles, and objects you can interact with. However, it does not penetrate walls, it's kinda hard to see everything else besides what's highlighted, and it automatically shuts off a few seconds after you start moving. This encourages you to turn it on for a second to see important things, then play normally. It even has a really good upgrade to visually represent footstep sounds, giving you some degree of x-ray vision without making it too powerful. Many, many times I have found myself still being surprised by an enemy I missed, it is still a really hard game even with this tool available.

[@Lumberjack_king]

13:28 thats genius

[@dailydelphox]

Don't know if you already have, bit if you plan on doing another game design doc, the Mario RPGS have plenty of examples you could use of intuitive UI's! For example, Superstar Saga's use of red and green, how it associates the a and b button with each. Or how natural the menus feel, the menu containing items, equipment, your map, etc. being presented as a suitcase, or how the save screens are written passports.

[@TeoReviewBG]

Amazing! Love the series...

[@therainbowyoshi817]

I love this series so much! It shows just how important graphic design in a game really is. With that said, I'm gonna respectfully disagree with you on Batman's detective mode. Admittedly it can be easily abused, especially in the first game, but I think that the actual design of the feature leaves little to be desired. Enemies are spelled out in great detail, showing off different enemy types and weapons with superb color contrast. Interactable objects are highlighted, Riddler puzzles are shown in detail so you don't misunderstand them, attack patterns are shown with different animations; it's extremely impressive in my eyes. Now granted in order to make this happen the screen is given a colored filter and makes predator sections easy with it's abuse, but I'd counter that that's the point. Detective mode highlights enemies, but it also removes the surrounding environmental detail that is sometimes necessary for solving Riddler snapshot challenges. You miss the pictures on the walls and certain depth perception tricks in detective mode, which means that you need to be swapping between the two modes based on the scenario. You find some bad guys? Detective mode it up to get the advantage on them, just like Batman would have. Finished with the baddies? Go back to regular mode to hunt for Riddles and enjoy the scenery. Abusing detective mode doesn't have any gameplay disadvantages, but it hinders certain puzzles, which encourages only using it in certain areas. Also later games (Knight specifically) add an enemy type that tracks you while you use it, adding even more strategy to predator sections. Hopefully no one thinks I'm a know-it-all by me posting this, I just wanted to defend a feature I personally like in a game series I love. Please keep up the great work Design Doc!

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

True. In Arkham City, using Detective Mode 100% of the time is actually very bad since it obscures so much detail and information that you will need for certain challenges and hell, even platforming and general environmental awareness. I never understood using Detective mode as a permanent crutch even once. This is the first I ever heard of it.

[@Sk8erBoiALX]

I really hate how pretty much every modern AAA action adventure relies so heavily on their version of detective mode/eagle vision. This genre was about exploration and finding secrets and resources, but by now it's just about hitting the "special vision" button every two seconds so you don't miss any colllectibles and also know where to go because who needs clever level design that signposts the right way when you can just press a button to get a giant glowing beacon that shows you where to go?

[@yellowtoad6803]

boy what is that techno trance song in the beginning running in the background at 0:20? It's a bop

[@DesignDoc]

“Ordinary Days” from Lethal League

[@yellowtoad6803]

@@DesignDoc Thank you so much, this is an exquisite choice for music! talk about good sound design in media ( ‾ʖ̫‾)

[@XradicalD]

When I played the early beta of Hover, I was expecting the UI and really cluttered enviroments be something that was going to change. It didn't. I just HATE the menus and the overly eye-poping environments, everything is just hard to see or identify. I stopped playing after 20 minutes, sad, as I really liked JSR and this looked promising.

[@nellancaster]

*Yes,* finally someone mentions the absurdly cluttered UI that is Gungnir's. I'd argue that other Dept. Heaven games also has this issue, but this one takes the cake. I _really_ want to play and even finish the game, but the interface still scares the living lights out of me.

[@TheAgamidaex]

I don't know if I'll ever play Pyre but my god that design is wonderful. Like it genuinly makes me happy to know it exists. Thank you.

[@xfalsetruth06x]

THANK YOU FOR THIS SERIES. Super interested in UI design and this combines with another thing I love: GAMES

[@TanKLoveR]

Just found your channel, great content :) really been enjoying watching your videos today. Hope you make more.

[@xvii5766]

I think Gungnir's UI was made complicated on purpose to make the game seem more complicated and complex, maybe inspired from stats screens such as those from DDR which give out as much information as possible in a complex way to make it look cooler

[@pyax7038]

So happy to see Pyre here, very nice video.

[@scienceteam9254]

14:57 Sting has a very bad reputation trying to make their games look kewl by overcomplicating it to the point where you'd want to vomit. EDIT:thanks to youtube for recommending the channel new sub here

[@mickmickymick6927]

The music in this vid is like those really cheap work training videos from the 90s

[@matteste]

I hope that one day cover a game called Hellsinker on this series though I wouldn't count on it given that it is a very obscure and hard to find title but that has a small but dedicated fanbase. I bring that game up since one of the first things people tend to notice regarding that game is its graphic design. It is a very love it or hate it kinda thing. It is both difficult to grasp and can be quite busy, but it also gives a player all the info they could need and it has become synonymous and a core part of the games style. And that mixed in with the games numerous mechanics and brisk pace it is perhaps one of the reasons why the game has remained so niche. But I do hope it get's covered at one point at least since, again, it has become such a part of it's style.

[@ayow94]

The missing part of Gungnir’s UI design is the contrast between texts of different languages. The English text in the Japanese version is just for decoration. They don’t disrupt the visual hierarchy of the Japanese information. By the way, the font choice of Japanese is a consistent bold serif font. The more clever way to solve this problem can be found in the Cowboy Bebop Netflix opening, which switches all the background English texts in the original version into Japanese.

[@BotanistJeff]

Twilight princess had a great version of detecta-vision with the wolf smell thing (can't remember what it's called). The limited distance of vision made it so that you tended to switch between the modes of sight