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

Let's take a look at the graphic design of six more games, some great, some awful and some flawed. Today we'll show off Metroid Prime, Hover, Journey, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Pyre, and Gungnir.
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[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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

[@thesuperthingymabob8209]

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

[@lugbzurg8987]

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.

[@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

[@migueeeelet]

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

[@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!

[@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!

[@Nedas21]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@appe7935]

sometimes I get lost on menus, because I leave a good UI game and play a bad UI game, so sometimes I waste 2 minutes trying to find where are all the controls for the game.

[@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.

[@armandduchatel8644]

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

[@eliz0r]

Excellent channel, learning a lot with it! Can you highlight Hyper Light Drifter game in this series? Want to know your opinion about it!

[@DesignDoc]

I'm going to need to put a lot more time into it. I believe I only did the first dungeon and then just fell off for no real reason about 2 or 3 years ago.

[@TheLarch]

You didn't mention the bonus for collecting all the glyphs in Journey :(

[@xeno4445]

3:40 us gamers need to rise up

[@GameNinja13]

I've never heard of Gungnir before and Now I gotta find it.

[@nero5052]

i like the way they did the vison mode in the last dishonored game

[@tx7300]

it'd be nice to see a UI design video on MMOs, everytime i try to get into one everything is an absolute uncomprehensible and illegible clusterfuck. if there are any good examples i'd like to see them

[@ZX3000GT1]

It would be awesome if you can show a good UI design in older games.

[@Petrico94]

I agree, Batman Arkham series is great but detective vision is just overpowering in it's usefulness. It highlights everything you need, you can see in the dark, secrets are meaningless with it on, there's almost no reason to turn it off unless you want to see things normal instead of enhanced. Maybe if there was a battery to it or you lost functionality during it people would be more likely to turn it off (which in turn the devs could improve other visuals). I don't know if making it look uglier is the right thing to do but it would at least discourage people from leaving it on. Great games, everything else looks nice, but it's also a good lesson not to give players something too useful it's their only option of seeing the game. I've been playing the Spiderman game and I do like the pulse version of highlighting important things more than a on/off filter that you'd rather keep on.

[@brandonwithnell612]

i never heard of gungnir but wow, you can barely tell theres even a game going on under all that

[@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.

[@Bane_Amesta]

You could make a video about the RPG makers out there, I know there's a lot of versions, and I would like to see which one is the most suited for the graphic design, because sometimes the games look awful, I think it would be interesting to see your opinion in this

[@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

[@Lumberjack_king]

13:28 thats genius

[@joangiecco5395]

1:23 it would be interesting if you had a talk with egoraptor about that xD

[@thahomiebill268]

Almost every anime game, with crazy art and title text and then using the font arial for the text and menus.

[@lugbzurg8987]

8:50 Bad Design... *NieR: Automata footage kicks in* That was so jarring, it hurt.

[@kinkstou]

amazing series

[@gamergalaxy6892]

one way to make Detective Vision not so overpowered: make it so that you can ONLY see the people. nothing else. not even yourself or any other UI.

[@jannuarytrash]

6:34 General Kenobi!

[@luuketaylor]

At that Gungnir section I actually paused, said "THE PROBLEM IS EVERYTHING!" and then unpaused to hear you say... "Was it everything?" Glad to know we're on the same page.

[@rnjebus5074]

Talk about the graphic design of Final Fantasy X because the sphere grid still gives me nightmares

[@LifeUntilLove]

Gungnir honestly looks like it was created by a graphic designer as an example of what not to do. It is so unbelievably bad.

[@shadowfalcon1269]

Is it just me that when I have seen the helmet didnt read the title and thought thete would be an analysis of doom 2016 audio design? The vid is great like always but im a bit disapointed of not seeying doom (my fault)

[@Alakaizer]

Yes, it was just you. I'm guessing you aren't familiar with the Metroid series, as that helmet belongs to Samus Aran, not the Doom marine.

[@shadowfalcon1269]

@@Alakaizer I checked really quickly and im not familiar enough with the metroid series to recognize the helmet

[@MaulG59]

It's Samus not doom guy

[@OhNoTheFace]

There is definitely something that keep Detective mode off when not needed. It makes the game look like ass. And believe be, that is common. People mostly flick it from time to time at best

[@anirudhviswanathan3986]

It also obscures environmental detail which you will need for the Riddler side quests, and it is a big hindrance for any long scale movement. You also cannot distinguish enemy types during combat through just yellow skeletons. There are real downsides to using Detective mode as a permanent crutch that aren't just aesthetics.

[@acmnin2146]

Metroid Primes UI just makes motion sickness worse for people affected by it.

[@hedgehoundable]

"This makes game design sound like an extortion racket..." *proceeds to show footage of Star Wars Battlefront* Mmhm.

[@geokorf]

Metroid Prime set LEVEL for premium design. I think no competition. Is there are games with same immersion? As strange as it sounds, but Metro2033 gameplay design is nice.

[@atelier482]

Gungnir reminds me of Yggdra Union... Oh god the UI horror. Edit: I found out that they were developed by the same company, no wonder.

[@Bane_Amesta]

The last game is something that I will never touch in my life, even if I'm paid for it, oh my God D:

[@chexe1677]

Good video!

[@unvergebeneid]

Gungnir's design reminded me of Xenoblade Chronicles on the 3DS. Everyone is praising this game and maybe it's good but I'll never know because everything about it is butt-ugly and clunky.

[@jomon324]

Edit: St!ng loves their clutter, and I do too. Check out Riviera The Promised Land (Wonderswan Color / GBA / PSP), Yggdra Union (GBA / PSP), Blaze Union (JP only), Gloria Union (JP only), and Knights in the Nightmare (DS / PSP) for some truly wonderfully mindboggling text aesthetics. The intro to DS Knights in the Nightmare alone is mindbogglingly cluttered, but that’s how they like their games. I think they’re going for an “ancient text” or “spellbook” sort of aesthetic. It’s designed to be difficult to understand upon first glance, so that you know “this is for the eccentric, not for the casual.” It’s an instantly readable aesthetic (THE IRONY) and I love it. SOMEBODY ELSE KNOWS WHAT GUNGNIR IS?! DEPT HEAVEN AHOOOOOOOOY!!!

[@pukmin4498]

But isn't the point of good UI is to understand on first glance? Plus, I really don't get the "spell book" vibe from it, it feels more "Let's cramp as much shit as possible on a screen."

[@cashnelson2306]

It seems like a common trend in your Bad Design segments is Japanese games. I wonder how many of them have similarly bad design in the original language, where far more information can be conveyed with fewer characters. Even back in the 16-bit days this was a bugbear for JRPG fans, where items would have names so abbreviated they were impossible to understand, and don't expect any effects to be explained properly at all. Do you know of any games that made a radical change in their game UI design in foreign adapted versions to get around this language difference?

[@caveshinobi1726]

What's the song at the end tho?

[@senza4591]

I like how he says oakarina

[@katsukikubota7549]

Some people will probably eat up Gungnir's UI though. Like how people ate up Persona 5's design.

[@phillippi2]

What that game at 9:28 called?

[@ThatBum42]

I love that bad design title card. It's like the very essence of sweet bro and hella jeff.

[@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.

[@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...

[@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

[@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.

[@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).

[@lugbzurg8987]

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

[@lugbzurg8987]

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]

@@lugbzurg8987 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.

[@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

[@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?

[@udime123]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@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).

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@Epiciouss]

These videos finishes too fast. I'd say that your videos have a very good design 😂

[@linky8038]

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

[@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.

[@Raf8347]

i vomited after seeing Gungnir's UI

[@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.

[@dinar8749]

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

[@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?

[@Matty002]

good design title card looks wonky again. i miss the blue print version :[ damn they really had the nerve to call that visual mess the spiritual successor to jet set radio? it sounds like they heard about the game and only went off that 'graphic design can be subtle' [insert 1% transparency joke here]

[@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.

[@tomasmcgrath5766]

Bad design, removing all NPCs from your game.

[@lugbzurg8987]

We talkin' about NPCs or NPCs?

[@tuppersplus]

Lugbzurg Yes.

[@Alias_Anybody]

Fallout 76?

[@piend]

*_haha nice pfp_*

[@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_* "

[@TeoReviewBG]

Amazing! Love the series...

[@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.

[@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

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@jgjg5182]

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

[@ZikolvinesGames]

do you think dwarf fortress can be considered bad design?

[@MKVProcrastinator]

Honestly, I feel like Borderlands 2 has some amazing UI design. Even though all the menus are stylistic as fuck, they're still simple to navigate.