Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 14 - Great and Terrible Graphic Design in Games

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We’re back with another Good Design, Bad Design, where we look at the great and terrible graphic design and visual communication in video games. Nothing says ‘Presentation of Information’ quite like a tutorial. Let’s look at some good and bad tutorial levels and sequences. Then, why leaving all your instructions in the instruction manual might be a bad idea, and a modern update to the concept of the instruction manual itself. Last, we’ll look at some symbols that might get lost in translation.
Featuring:
Splatoon 3
Sonic Unleashed
Driver
Tunic
Splatoon again
Kirby Super Star briefly
DDR 5th Mix JP
Katamari Damacy
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Design Doc on Twitter: / warbot400
#splatoon #sonicunleashed #gamedesign

[@DesignDoc]

Play War Thunder for FREE on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S: warthunder.com/en/play4free?r=utb_DesignDoc#/ . Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. Thank you for supporting the channel!

[@samalievski4875]

Hey I have a video idea for you, what if you talked about the mechanic, of Switching Characters in games,. Like Final Fantasy 7 and others, stuff like that. How some games do a good and interesting job and how others do a not so good job.

[@sonicrocks2007]

Can you do video on Classes? Team Fortress, Chess, Final Fantasy etc :)

[@shaggy7958]

I have one game to analyze PIZZA TOWER

[@71507]

One of my 'favourite' examples of localisation gone bad: In one of the earlier Monkey Island games (I think it might have been the first one) there's a puzzle that's solved by using a monkey as a wrench. This is a pun on the tool being called monkey wrench. Problem is, it's only called that in English, so to someone not familiar with English would have no clue they were supposed to do something like that and would find it nonsensical why they suddenly had to use a monkey like a wrench. I believe the backlash from that was severe enough that LucasArts made it a rule for future games to never have another puzzle or solution based around an untranslatable pun like that.

[@guybrush20X6]

Yeah, it was even worse as Monkey Wrench is a term mostly confined to the USA which meant people in other English speaking territories were out of luck.

[@leithaziz2716]

Answers based on puns are the easiest to screw up for anyone who doesn't know of the context in the first place. Games made in Japan sometimes tend to run into scenarios like that.

[@MiloKuroshiro]

A famous example of something going the other way around, something that was supposed to be a Puzzle but it's really obvious to anyone who uses the Latin Alphabet is the first murder case in the first Danganronpa, where you have something that looks like numbers being actually letters forming a name, which is really obvious for us, but a bit harder for anyone in Japan that isn't super familiar with the alphabet and/or wouldn't link the letters to the romanized name of a character.

[@rubendelgado5098]

that reminds me of watching The Batman in spanish, because The Riddler riddles can't be properly translated, so it come off as Batman being a bad detective, especially the " El Rata Alada" part

[@rainpooper7088]

Even worse, the German translators actually proposed a solution that would have worked for far more languages by requesting to be allowed to replace the monkey with a stereotypical Englishman as the item is known as an English wrench in Germany but also other parts of the world. They got told to shut up and take what they were handed, but they did leave a book in the library complaining about the situation.

[@ninckmane]

Honestly, I could watch a full-length video just talking about Splatoon's design. The game is so absurdly well thought out and designed, that you could probably make a whole series based on it. Loved learning about the beginner symbol, I had never heard of that!

[@NowRacattackForce]

You'll want to check out JP Art's channel then. They have a number of videos looking at Splatoon 3's design.

[@ninckmane]

@@NowRacattackForce Oh yeah!! I watch them already, their content is great

[@Stephen-Fox]

@@NowRacattackForce Along with Deku Gamer, who regularly guests on that series and has videos in the same playlist.

[@scribblecloud]

PLEASE DO

[@Petty_Omen]

Yes please

[@thebraviarykid7849]

Speaking of splatoon, the UI/hud is PERFECT for telling you exactly what is going on, who’s in the lead, what your teammates status is, what weapons everyone has, etc.

[@Iinneus]

I'm actually so shocked by this-- I looked at Splatoon 2 gameplay recently and... they just straight up don't say anything for the first few points of a match. And then, when you _do_ trigger the point where the game will say something, it's only when a team is _currently_ making a push, and they put "Danger!" on the opposing team. I seriously don't know how I managed back then; the game's been out for a month, but I'm lost if I can't just glance up and see the word "Lead!" in a split second, among so many other UI updates.

[@thebraviarykid7849]

@@Iinneus yeah, it’s INSANE, I honestly didn’t fully realize some of these at first, but I’m so appreciative of them

[@harmless9336]

Seeing where ally specials are used and where every death occurs without needing to check the map is also super helpful

[@thebraviarykid7849]

Oh yea! The special meter is a lot more clear in 3!

[@PerobenseAlbuquerque]

I think the manual in Tunic serves to emulate another sentiment too. I'm from Brazil and as a kid I didn't read english or japanese. So every time I played a game, I could understand like 1 for every 10 words in english. For japanese games it was even worse! I needed to try every options on menus and remember the shapes of the kanji to choose the same again. Over time, my English got better and I can play games now without this extra step of discovery. Tunic gave this sentiment again for me, and for every player. A very unique experience.

[@quadZ_z]

That is so cool, thanks for sharing! There's money in this idea: a DuoLingo for kids, that teaches them language through immersion & engaging gameplay!

[@Kaimax61]

Me playing Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden, BEFORE THE INTERNET.

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

A problem of Spain, Portugal and all of Latin America before they started translating games to Spanish and Portuguese, honestly!

[@henriquezioto8760]

Me playing majora's mask and ocarina of time and getting stuck on the tutorial of each game for hours. i was only able to progress pass the beginning of the game years later after i got older and learned english. Kokiri Forest and Clock Town was basically the whole game for me, running back and forth throught every nook and cranny trying to finding where to progress the game. Of course, i also couldn't play any RPG for the same reason.

[@NibelungJ]

Another brazilian person here, that was me playing Final Fantasy 7 in japanese, purely on hype of the "amazing CGI cutscenes", having no idea what the plot was, and just wanting to see big numbers and flashy spells/summons being thrown around. The english release was welcome mostly because I could read what the spells were. Even then, to this day, I remember that サンダー is Thunder because "it's the spell that ends in a line".

[@BlueberryBlanket]

Fun fact about the new driver marker: it's supposed to look like a new healthy leaf. Its counterpart that denotes elderly drivers was originally orange and red... So a dying leaf. They changed it pretty quickly.

[@aturchomicz821]

Cuckservatives really ruin everything huh😑😑

[@Mister_Gency]

It's amazing something like that made it past the drawing board

[@666blaziken]

That's pretty savage.

[@nidohime6233]

To me it looked more like the feather part of an arrow.

[@GibusWearingMann]

I thought that marker was some sort of military insignia. Boy was I way off

[@parchmentengineer8169]

When you showed that green and yellow symbol, my literal first thought was "Hey, those are the same colors as the Jr. Mark in Splatoon!" It's really cool that Splatoon was able to implicitly teach me something about a symbol from another culture.

[@kana_emiya]

Xenoblade chronicles 3 does an interesting thing where the UI is actually the in universe UI, kinda like nier automata. Everyone in Xenoblade 3 has an iris, like a cell phone in their eyeballs. and the menu is themed entirely around that. Your choices in the menu even affects the iris in some cutscenes its pretty cool

[@leithaziz2716]

Oh, so it's like how the Dead Space UI works. That's neat.

[@tomasapud8240]

That's called Diegetic UI btw

[@kaistephens2694]

I LOVE THAT ABOUT XC3!!!!!! I love how the bright orange of the Iris menu contrasts against the navy blue of the iris background and of the colors of pretty much every location in the game.

[@scaryhobbit211]

Xenoblade really improved their UI game - going from being pretty bad with the Wii original and X, to really good with Definitive Edition and 3.

[@CI254]

I attempted to play Driver a lot as a kid. A lot. A lot, a lot. I never got past the parking garage once. I also never knew there was a proper training mode on the title screen until this video. I have no words.

[@kubev]

I was eventually able to get past the parking garage segment, but yeah, I didn't know about the training mode. I'm glad I played on PC. I deleted the folder that contained the voices during game play after getting tired of hearing "YOU WRECKED THE CAR, MAN!" a billion times in the parking garage.

[@matt2027]

Might be worth noting that in the Splatoon 3 lobby, if you talk to Judd, he’ll give you “advice” and do a mini tutorial for a weapon, sub or special. For seasoned players, it’s mostly pointless, but could be useful for new players. It’s nice that it’s there as an option for those who want it, but doesn’t push it on players who don’t.

[@Nachiebree]

It does push it on players who don't want it, you get a notification you can't clear until you've seen ALL the tutorials

[@izzyalayna3843]

@@Nachiebree there’s a skip button when you speak to him so you don’t have to do the tutorial

[@Nachiebree]

@@izzyalayna3843 but you still have to talk to him at least until you go through every dialogue he has available

[@coconutlauncher]

I'd like to see a Good Design, Bad Design about missables (eg. elements locked by plot progression) and branching gameplay (eg. sidequests with results depending by the player's choices). On one hand they kinda add some variation to the experience and give an incentive to replay the game, on the other they can leave the player feeling like they screwed up because they didn't know something and HAVE to play the game again or look up guides on everything.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

I find these less annoying if the game has some kind of new game+ that makes repeat playthroughs quicker especially if the main story is pretty much linear.

[@coconutlauncher]

@@BonaparteBardithion That's true, but it can still be annoying if you feel like you're forced to play again to correct a mistake you had no way to avoid. One thing is "I'll make this choice and in new game+ I'll see what the other choice does" but "The kid died and brought their other sidequests with them in the tomb because you choose to give them a light blue lollipop instead of a dark blue lollipop" is a whole other story.

[@AnotherDuck]

I think that "missables" are in two categories: stuff you collect in games where you collect everything, and stuff in games where there are many mutually exclusive paths to take. I don't mind the latter. Those are expected, and don't all need to be collected. This also includes most games that move along a plot and you usually can't return to previous areas, since in those you're expected to miss things on occasion, at least on a first playthrough. These also tend to be somewhat shorter if you know what you're doing. The former can die in a fire.

[@coconutlauncher]

@@AnotherDuck I don't mind mutually exclusive paths when I have control on the outcome and can choose which result I want for each playthrough. What I dislike are those where the choices seemingly would lead to equal results but in reality one is objectively better and I have no way to identify which one it is: in this cases I'm not really making a choice on how I want my playthrough to procede and that's why I feel that I'm forced to replay the game instead of choosing to do so.

[@AnotherDuck]

@@coconutlauncher If one of them is objectively better it can still be good design. As long as there's a reason for it. For instance, if you have a good and an evil option, having the evil one give a better material reward means you have to actually "pay" something to be good. Or if it's the other way around it could work if playing evil is supposed to be "hard mode".

[@StartouchArts]

The Monado using kanji is actually brilliant. The Monado's kanji is the one and only time real-world language appears in Xenoblade, adding to its mystery and otherworldly qualities; making it an unexpectedly subtle-but-not-really-subtle foreshadowing.

[@SuspiciousScout]

On the topic of Splatoon, I love how the beginning of the Story Mode has the crater levels that give you a feel of the bare basics before jumping into the real game after fighting DJ Octavio. Also doubles greatly as a clever fake-out for long time fans.

[@alessandroferrari5851]

"It has been slightly under one year" Me, checking on recent uploads: "What do you mean? The last volume came out recen-" Good Design, Bad Desing - Vol. 13: 11 months ago Me: "God, I f*cking hate time."

[@AnotherDuck]

I was thinking the other way around. Finally another "Good Design, Bad Design" episode. Been a while. Although I appreciate the other kinds of videos too.

[@Sanseru2702]

One example of bad design would be bonuses that instead of being helpful end up being annoying because of how they are implemented. Like the Pin system in Psychonauts 2 and the Thought Cabinet in Disco Elysium. In Psychounauts 2 you can buy pins to modify your powers. But you can only equip 3 at a time, and they help in very specific ways that a certain combination of them that is useful in one situation is useless in others, so you need to change them frequently. It's so annoying that at the end you ignore them. The Thought Cabinet in Disco Elysium lets you "think" about something for several in-game hours, and after that you get a stat modifier. But you don't know what bonuses you will get for completing each one, and while you are thinking them you get stat penalties. Even worse, removing them to get a new one costs experience points, so it's possible to pay EXP to remove one that was useful and replace it with one that is useless.

[@umbrellashotgunman]

At least with Disco, I wouldn’t be surprised if the frustration was intentional, given the deliberation with which the game as a whole was designed (and the devs’ overall personal philosophies).

[@navolas2]

Adding to the kanji localization I love the way that Monster Hunter handles it in the current games (Gen 4 onward I think). In Japanese all the elements of the weapons use a kanji and each element/status can be represented with just one kanji in the west it would require far more space to replace them. Instead what they did was replace the kanji with a symbol for each element. It works well and is easily readable on all screens which I think was the initial concern

[@Liggliluff]

This is what I think Kanji should be replaced with; symbols or letters. Most often symbols. But letters can make sense sometimes, for example for one game having kanji for short, medium and long range, which can be S/M/L, which can also stand in for small attack range to large attack range. Easier than any symbols, at least in English.

[@Yolwoocle]

​@@Ligglilufffair enough but your example might not translate well into all languages. Although I will admit that the "XS/S/M/L/XL" system is so widespread that it could work well for European/western localization.

[@Liggliluff]

@@Yolwoocle The localisation would be done per language, which was my whole original point. Japanese can use kanji, English can use other symbols, German can use whatever symbols make sense for them. You can also do "•", "••", "•••" to denote short, medium and long range, based on the number of dots, which should work across more cultures.

[@Vulcanfaux]

If it's possible, I'd love to hear you talk about how ds and 3ds games utilized the dual screens. How etrian odyssey used the bottom screen to let you draw a map, how advanced wars made the top screen show unit info like what their movement through each terrain is, what units they excelled at fighting. Or even how games like kid icarus uprising put all the speech text and character portrait on the bottom screen as you focused entirely on the top screen for the action that was happening. I'll be honest I didn't even see or noticed the portrait on the bottom screen unless there was no action on the top screen or while watching someone else play it.

[@jasonreed7522]

Thats a good idea my all time favorite DS game is Fossil Fighters and its sequel because they use the touch screen for a minigame to clean fossils of rock and i can't think of any other platform ever being able to do that exact minigame in a way that feels natural and right. Also HGSS have the best pokemon management in the boxes where you use the stylus to drag the around. The dual screens are amazing, especially with the lower one being physical touch/pressure based and not capacitive like phones. It is simply an incredibly unique periferal, but that is Nintendo's thing now, not competing on raw hardware power like PS and Xbox but by having a totally unique console that allows the creation of games that really can't be done on anything else. (I would say the gamecube is probably the last "normal" console they made)

[@seqka711]

The original The World Ends With You had a great dual screen mechanic, where you controlled one party member on the bottom screen with the stylus and another party member on the top with the buttons. It was definitely hard to learn, but satisfying to master.

[@kaistephens2694]

@@seqka711 It's also the reason why true, authentic TWEWY rereleases are nigh impossible unfortunately 😞

[@paperluigi6132]

@@kaistephens2694 there could’ve been one on WiiU, but it was the WiiU.

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

the first Zero Escape, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors or 999 for short, is still one of my favorite cases of that from a story standpoint but to elaborate is MASSIVE spoilers. I'll just say the way the Nonary Games bundle version handled it was about the only way they could.

[@eagletsnupper7876]

"presentation of information" gives me the same euphoria as "reporting to the emergency room, unconscious"

[@saint4901]

☝🏻

[@LunaLuminary]

Unexpected chubbyemu?

[@kaasiand]

-emia, meaning presence of information

[@arogustus3984]

I've been asking for a Crafting Menu Good Design thing for some time now. Maybe it's about time we got one. Recently, Don't Starve Together ran into a problem. It's old crafting UI from the single player days, while a very functional and useful one, was getting a little cramped as more craftables and categories were added. One of their Quality of Life updates focused on completely overhauling the UI to something new. They made sure to communicate it clearly to us why they made the changes, and while it did take a while to get used to, it ended up great. Now the UI is larger, if size adjustable in the options, fitting more info inside it. Instead of categories, you filter through them based on specific settings. Searching for winter clothes can be found in the appropriate tab, but also in the general clothing tab too. Even better, when the item needs a specific craftable ingredient, like cut stone, you just click on the icon on the ingredient image rather than having to search for it in the refinables tab. They even added a bar to pin specific items to, so you can instantly craft items without having to open the menu. They managed to maintain the original smoothness of the first crafting menu, while still adapting it to a much expansive system they ended up creating, and has kept the process smooth and easy.

[@MagusDouken]

Honestly, I've never liked how tiny the crafting menu in Terraria is. Yes, yes, I know, mod it to fix it, but if I have to do that, then its a recognized problem that has not been addressed.

[@parchmentengineer8169]

I'm going to need to check that out! I found the crafting menu really obtuse when I first played Don't Starve, so I'm excited to see how they improved on it.

[@arogustus3984]

@@parchmentengineer8169 See if you like it. As I mentioned, the developers kinda had to ease us into the change, which I praise them for. Maybe you'll find this one better, maybe you'll find it worse, it all depends on how you feel about it.

[@jasonreed7522]

Speaking of old games Minecraft is still using its original inventory & crafting system, which has only had minor tweaks like the recipe book. (Which has different behavior between the 2 versions of the game with Java having it only populate the crafting grid and Bedrock/C++ having it craft the item for you). And now people are asking for an inventory/quality of life update. (Which totally wont get controversial) Crafting systems & inventory management is definitely a good idea for a good design bad design episode. (Or a general theory episode)

[@Dr.CaveCurinas]

Gotta love a new episode of "Good Design, Bad Design"

[@EDsCorner]

That bad design card was scarier than any costume

[@dockingwater1713]

This is definitely more gameplay than purely just presentation, but I love how Splatoon 3’s Story Mode also gives you a chance to use every weapon that was available at launch barring only 2, often putting you in scenarios to show what the weapon can do and where it shines the most, like giving you a Squeezer in a level where you have to break specific boxes putting emphasis on it’s perfect accuracy or giving you an Inkbrush in a level where you have to collect a bunch of collectibles within a time limit emphasizing its speed and excellent handling while rolling. You can also test out any weapon by going to Sheldon’s Shop, including ones you aren’t high enough level to get at a normal price, allowing you to test make an informed decision on which weapon you want to get next.

[@jasonreed7522]

Testing things at the shop sounds amazing, its like test driving a car before spending a lot of money and finding out you don't actually like what it said on the sticker (text description).

[@ElectariumTunic]

As an example of Bad Design: During the tutorial of Assassin's Creed 2 you start the game at the moment you're born. The prompts said: • "Press [Right Arm]-button to move your right arm." • "Press [Legs]-button to move your legs." I had no idea what the [Right Arm]-button was. So I had to press random button on the keyboard until I happened to press the correct one. And when I figured it out (left mouse button), the baby moved it right arm a little. However, I did still not know what the button was used for. Repeat again for the [Legs]-button - press random keys - found the correct one (shift) - and the baby moved its leg (Spoiler alert! This was the attack turtorial. The [Right Arm]-button was the Attack-button. The [Legs]-button was sprint.)

[@ZTimeGamingYT]

Design Doc uploads are not as prevalent, but have insane amounts of quality within them.

[@jelyse14]

Another thing about the Monado symbols in Xenoblade 1 was how it fit in with storytelling as well. You're always seeing "機" (machine), and its said it cant cut people, so while Shulk is talking about the possibility of other symbols appearing your first thought might be "well, perhaps another symbol, 人 (person), would appear later?" but in the west most people dont have that layer of analytical thinking in the storytelling and where you think it might end up going. And as soon as the Monado gains the power to cut people the symbol for 機 (machine) changes to the symbol for 人 (person) and Zanza is like "now nothing but a god can stand in your way!" possibly bringing back that first line of reasoning you had at the beginning, how before it couldnt even cut people but now you've gotten that power unlocked, and adding further to the foreshadowing. And at the very end of the game after the final boss fight when Shulk receives HIS monado the symbol for 神 (diety) appears showing that this monado can kill even Zanza and it adds to how hard that ending cutscene hits, but for people who dont know it doesnt mean anything to them.

[@cyan.cephalopod]

I’d be interested in a video on camera control! Inscryption’s unique system of quick turns and moves really added to it’s horror imo. But a lot of games struggle to have a camera that doesn’t get in the way of gameplay. Not to mention that in open world games, some players move the camera while moving like it’s second nature while others need to stop in order to look around.

[@leithaziz2716]

Games that focus on a specific angle for cinematography, mainly action games, run into this issue. DMC games usually handles this good enough. For a bad example, Legacy of Kain Defiance's worst aspect is the camera, which a lot of the times makes platforming harder because it obscures your view when it comes to small things such as your distance from the platform.

[@jasonreed7522]

The 3D mario games can be used for this, i grew up on Mario Sunshine and am very used to its camera, when i tried playing Mario 64 (through all stars) i found the camera super janky and unhelpful. However, i know that a lot of people are completely the opposite and love Mario 64's camera and dislike Sunshine's camera. I think most issues with camera controls are a result of 3rd person cameras, if nothing else because 1st person is what we are used to and its a pretty basic point where you want to look vs 3rd person requiring you to orbit the camera around yourself. (Also fixed position cameras like how one of the resident evils is done entire through security cameras and not everyone is used to moving with such a perspective, and thats great for a horror game. Do these count as 2nd person?)

[@Bane_Amesta]

The bad Sonic tutorial reminded me of an indie game called Rides with Strangers, which was about being a hitch hiker trying to get to her destination in the middle of the night. The idea was super cool, but the tutorial was just a huge text wall in the tiniest font, with all the mechanics tossed in there. Which made simple stuff like just looking at the car and make it stop a really complicated chore. Even the dev said that like one person was able to play the game correctly, which to me is more of how the information was presented, to the youtuber's supposedly better skills at the game. He just took the time to read the whole thing carefully, which took way too much time for a tutorial. Edit: I watched the video just in case, and low and behold, he youtuber had to read the tutorial twice to fully understand the game mechanics. Oooof.

[@jasonreed7522]

And then you have the opposite with Portal which is 80% tutorial by volume and nobody noticed. Tutorials are such a tricky thing to get right, but the big problems are usually info dumps, excessive handholding, and taking too long. (And all of these are subjective measures) But the worst is when a game breaks from its genera's typical control scheme, i know Extra Credits has a video and the mention a dev team had "tripple click yourself" as a way to open the inventory in a typical MMO 3rd person game. Everyone is standardized on WASD & left stick move, mouse and right stick look for basically any game this is relevant to. Imagine if a game used right stick for move and left stick for look, and for keyboard & mouse used RDFG or even just "z" insted of "s" and "s" opens the inventory. (WASD is so standard that gaming keyboards often color them differently just to make them easier to find) Tldr: tutorials can be done well, but its way easier if you make things intuitive and stick to general conventions for things like control schemes and basic mechanics.

[@delaneyelekes8660]

Tunic's tutorils are amazing. It's a Metroidvania that's gated by INFORMATION, and it doesn't always **hand** that to you right away, you're given just enough information that you can think about your puzzle pieces and you can connect the dots. It's something I've never seen a game do before.

[@Geedly]

The Driver tutorial actually returns in Driver: San Francisco as a fairly late game unlockable challenge (specifically unlocked by hitting 88’ in the DeLorean, which in itself is hilarious). It is one of the only challenges in that game that I never managed to complete

[@KARLOSPCgame]

4:27 Also some balloons have stickers of the bosses on them so you can test their HP using the current weapons rotation *And i think in the upper left, the Steel head dummy is in the same height as their weak spot so you can know if your weapon cant reach it at a safe distance

[@Stephen-Fox]

...what. Super useful info to know, cheers for that.

[@kbhasi]

Yep! I only figured that out just a few days ago, after having started playing S3 Salmon Run earlier this year. It's so subtle that they look like decorations at first.

[@Shazzner]

One localization issue I've come across was from a horror mystery game: NG. In it you had to solve a puzzle from a ghost author that drew inspiration from fairy tales. Japanese fairy tales that is. That wasn't the worst part though, there was a puzzle where you had to fill in the blank but it was a special Japanese romanization of character in a fairy tale's name. Localizers tried their best it seems, but without knowing the different romanization techniques it was difficult to understand. To give an analogy, imagine you translate a puzzle from English to Japanese, but one of the puzzles had a fill in the blank but the clue was 'Something for breakfast; someone from the Caribbean saying Beercan'. Without a lot of English specific context, I'd imagine that would be tough to convey.

[@LittleParade_]

Maybe an episode centered around good vs bad Wii Controllers, or just additional controller accessories in general? Things like the WiiFit Board, Nunchuk, steering wheel, more obscure pieces? And how they either enhance gameplay/immersion or flopped due to pricing, not working as intended, etc

[@jasonreed7522]

Maybe expand it to peripherals in general, you have the basic controller layout used by Xbox and Playstation (and even they can have some variety, like stick location but thats minor compared to what the Wii had going in) Also the DS and its 2 screens with one being a touch screen enabled some really creative games mechanics or simply moving less critical UI elements out of the way of the main screen.

[@LittleParade_]

@@jasonreed7522 peripherals is the word I was looking for, I couldn't remember what they were called, thank you 😭

[@guybrush20X6]

One thing I have in mind could be good and bad sound design, in all different aspects. For example Good Design: Splatoon's confirmation or back out sounds are all goopy or aquatic sounding, fitting the theme of the game while still getting their purposes across. Bad Design: Shadow the Hedgehog replace the Sonic Adventure series (admittedly loud) confirmation noise with gunfire. It's literally the first thing you hear of the game as you make a new file.

[@Stephen-Fox]

For Splatoon, I think the Tacticooler and Clam Blitz jingles help gameplay - Diegetic music that gives you audible information about the current state of the game, either a buff being available (Tacticooler) or either your team or the enemy team has opened the basket and is able to score. ...Even if the Clam Blitz jingle is hilariously incongruent to the rest of the game's music and gameplay. (Salmon Run has something similar with the Fish Sticks... Humming... but that doesn't help as much)

[@Maxler5795]

I love yakuza's visuals. Roaming the cities, wheter day or night, it feel alive but theres also a kanji thing i wanted to mention. Kinda. See in 0 and kiwami (a remake of game 1) y have fighting styles. And in japanese they are just kanas. In the english translation though, they are represented by a drawing.

[@alexanderthegreat4817]

Recently I was playing escale academy and had a problem discerning between things I could and couldn't interact with. I aslo did a real life escape room, and again same sort of issue. I'd love to see a video about just escape room games and how they communicate WHAT you can interact with, HOW you can and WHEN you need to!!!

[@amaryllis0]

Or just any games - the whole "yellow paint means climbable" thing comes to mind

[@Iinneus]

Oh, I love this idea! There are so many times in games when I just straight up don't realize I can interact with something. There's also the issue when something becomes interactable _later_ and they don't really do anything to say "hey, this is now a game element".

[@dondashall]

Future video recommendation: quick-time event combat systems (like Ikenfell). I'm seeing them more and more and as someone with accessibility concerns that make them difficult/impossible I'm not liking it. Now while some games do have accessibility options to make it easier or even skip it like Ikenfell most of them don't.

[@Sparkjolteon]

for me that's an interesting subject i defs get the accessibility concern and am never gonna say no to games having options to turn them off/tweak them (ikenfell was especially good about it because frankly, i just think the default system for that game kind of sucks even w/o accessibility concerns). but as a rule i love QTE RPG combat just because I find it much more fun than traditional RPG mechanics both definitely have their places but i'm personally happy to see more games w similar systems pop up

[@dondashall]

@@Sparkjolteon Yeah, my issue isn't so much that they exist it's that with extremely rare exceptions (pretty much only ikenfell) they really need some options for those of us who can't handle them. I think Ikenfell's basic combat system is ok (not great, but decent) once you get a bit into the game and you have more tactical options. It's a bit underpowered but that fits the story of the game. But yeah, before you get those tactical options it's pretty bad.

[@ColoniaContraAtaca]

The "New Driver Symbol" here in Brazil was a old bank logo...... so I aways thought it was something connect to money LOL Great video :)

[@alexvasquez7047]

you should do a video of games making you wait and how it’s made enjoyable.

[@SamuelDaniels]

I'd be interested in a GD/BD of games where you have to take your eyes off the action to see other critical information. Sometimes that can be a part of the challenge, like in shoot 'em ups where you need to put your eyes on your ship and basically not even bother worrying about shot accuracy in bullet hell moments. Other times it can be annoying like in an action or racing game where you have to look away to check whether some cooldown ability is now available. Or even just generally being forced to watch two locations simultaneously which is only possible via peripheral vision or darting the eyes back and forth (the terribly named "A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher" comes to mind).

[@kiteal1]

I think this fits for a "Bad Design" option. In one of the newest raids in Final Fantasy 14 (Specifically the 3rd one, Asphodelos: The Third Circle), the entire arena is orange with lots of orange particles. This already causes strain on the eyes, but then its made even worse because the ground markers to indicate where the boss is about to attack are also orange. Many players had to use special shaders on this map in order to tone down the orange eye strain and to be able to actually see what was important for the boss fight on the ground. This got exacerbated by being one of the hardest fights in that raid tier so people spent a lot of time in that fight

[@DesignDoc]

The big chicken made me hate the color orange. I don't hate P3S in retrospect but that arena's background DID NOT help things when we were progging.

[@kiteal1]

@@DesignDoc ah perfect you play FFXIV so you understand exactly what I'm talking about lol. I felt the fight itself was fine but fighting those colors was definitely a questionable choice I am also one of those people who needed to get gshade just for that fight since it was giving me migraines

[@DesignDoc]

@@kiteal1 There are a few annoying issues with raids atm. Some of the fights in the current tier have been fairly rough for a color blind friend of mine. Not to mention not being able to "legally" place decent markers for p7s which sucks.

[@kiteal1]

@@DesignDoc they did fix p7s so you can legally place them now, but it's also weird because SE designed the fight so you couldn't have markers there, people cheated to get them there, and then SE couldn't delete them so they made it that everyone could do it now. And yeah, they have had a lot of color blind issues. In p8sp2 we have had many wipes sure to people combining the wrong elements since the blue and purple towers are kinda similar

[@WeskAlber]

@@kiteal1 The illegal markers for P7S are bad markers anyway. I absolutely hate them. Make sure they're using the color blind options and give their feedback on the forums. One of my healers is also colorblind. They have trouble noticing the animations and floor marks for each tower differ too I assume?

[@ArtzyZero]

Hmm... ideas for future videos, how about character creation? I'm thinking more along the lines of how easy they are to navigate, does it let me preview how things will look on my character? Does it actually tell me what this slider does or do I have to keep dragging it while looking at my character to see what's changing? etc. I can't remember if this series has covered character creation before so if it has then just ignore me! :D

[@Stephen-Fox]

If you haven't seen them, JoCat used to do a series of videos specifically about reviewing character creators, which incorporated both reviews of their UX and their options into the coverage. Might give you something of what you're looking for.

[@gabrieltheboy3598]

Yo-Kai Watch 3 did a weird thing when it localized in the west. To summarize the first chapter, Nate moves to America from Japan and can’t understand anybody because he doesn’t speak English. However, his dad suddenly knows English because of a Yo-Kai inspiriting him. The Yo-Kai then makes a deal with Nate to be able to speak English. Now, that was a fun way to introduce it, but that was the original. What happened in the English version is that they were in America the entire time and they just moved south. Oh, and the reason he wouldn’t understand them? Why it’s because they had thick southern accents and used a lot of southern slang… obviously! Nothing is changed outside of that, and has a lot of holes when you poke it. Also, I’m sure most English speakers can figure out what unknown slang means, and it implies that Nate never watched anything with a character from the south! Which can’t be true because he lives in the US of A, where one of the most popular cartoons has Sandy Cheeks, a pure blood Texan through and through!

[@snil4]

Would've been funny if they kept it like that and you get to experience the other side of the story until you and your dad learn english.

[@kbhasi]

Oh my. I already knew about how bad the English localisation was for most* of the world, with the localisation team having wanted or tried to Americanise the series, but I didn't know about how they tried to cover up their mistake in YW3 until now. *(that is, not counting the anime and toys released in Southeast Asia as that got better English localisations IMO. I watched the Southeast Asian dub of the anime for a while and it was only when I went online that I found that there was a whole separate American dub with, like the games and toys there, different names for all of the characters!)

[@SDiDuro]

I've been watching Design Doc for a few years now and thoroughly enjoying the vids on this channel, and I gotta say, I'm honored with the myriad ways in which you've been squeezing in subtle (and not so subtle) references to Freedom Planet and its sequel whenever you have the opportunity. Thanks for the love and for cultivating a community so engaged with the way games are created!

[@DesignDoc]

Thanks! FP 2 was worth the wait. I keep trying to figure out a way to make a full FP segment in something, but all I can do is add it to b-roll. I'll try to give the series a proper shout out in a video one of these days.

[@ryansandwich1086]

Great video! I think a repeat of some of the older topics with games from the past couple of years is a good idea. Revisiting lessons like these is never bad

[@DesignDoc]

There's always more than 1 answer for design problems. Also having a reminder every now and then is never a bad thing.

[@ThatFanBoyGuy]

Another good example of the Kanji getting lost in translation is Pokemon's fire blast attack. I know a lot of people who thought it was a Blair Witch Project reference, when in reality, it was just the Kanji symbol for strong.

[@colororb4105]

The localization stuff was probably the most interesting thing in the series so far!

[@Liggliluff]

He should cover more of it. Good clever localisation tricks, and bad localisations. Not just translation issues, but actually faulty icons or games relying on things that makes no sense in other languages or cultures.

[@AtomBacon]

I have 1 gripe with Splatoon 3's mostly amazing visual design: Normally when playing ranked any on screen text related to the game state (such as who has the lead or the current objective) follows a constant pattern: Good news = ally colour Bad news = enemy colour. *except* when a Wipeout occurs. In which case it will always be outlined with ally colour around either white or black font depending on which team got wiped.

[@gwan1714]

I mean it makes sense, having it black vs white is alot easier to read since the words are both wipeout both times, where in ranked the words are specific and self explanatory, so the colour of the outline is just a neat detail and arent the main focus to tell if something good or bad is happening. If the wipeout had both white text with coloured outline differences, itd be harder to instantly tell, or at least this is my opinion/experience.

[@AtomBacon]

@@gwan1714 I would argue its *more* important BECAUSE its the same word both times. Our colour vs thier colour makes immediate intuitive sense. Black and white don't. And speaking from personal experience I've had countless times where I kill trade with someone and it says Wipeout and I have to check which team it was because it's not obvious. ESPECIALLY since its outlines in your colour, which when combined with the aforementioned system of everything else would imply that its in your favour when it might not be.

[@blunderbus2695]

In fairness, the Wipeout notification also makes a very loud and very obvious sound cue whenever it happens, being pretty clearly "ooh, we did a good" or "aww, we did a bad" depending on which team's just been wiped out.

[@pableitor2009]

Thanks for bringing up Tunic. I finished it a few weeks ago and it's without a doubt the best game I've played in years. It made me feel like I was 5 again, having no clue of what I was doing, going back and forth on the manual, but feeling super good when solving the puzzles that the game gave me, specially those end-game ones when you still don't fully understand what the manual is saying. And oh boy translating the manual was tough but rewarding. It's extra hard on non-native english speakers, but it forces you to use your imagination and think outside the box. It's amazing how a game that literally throws you onto its world without any kind of explanation can work this good

[@janthummler3548]

You design series is always a pleasure to watch, thanks a lot! Have you ever considered expanding your scope to boardgames or TCGs? Maybe look at adaptions of videogames and how game mechanics translate into another medium? That might be interesting to explore.

[@silversonome5360]

It's always great to see good channels uploading quality content as usual! Hey, I've got an odd request in subject for a video: is there a chance you'd be able to search for or talk about videogames that are accessible for people with motor disabilities? I know the likelihood of you picking up this comment out of the mass of them in the video is abysmal, but I wanted to try regardless since your content is particularly approachable and easy to understand, and because I've been wanting to share some videogames with my girlfriend, and I've been curating a list of both games I have and games I could get to share with her! Thanks for reading if you manage to see this comment!

[@lilchris9cmb]

I'm not sure if it was discussed before, but navigating menus could be interesting. There's quite a few games that emulate a mouse for console players, which does not feel good to use at all. Destiny 2 and Dead By Daylight for example, instead of making their menus arranged in a way that can be navigated with a controller, they simply made a fake computer mouse to do all of the work instead. Even on the console exclusive Destiny 1 it was the case. It boggles my mind why this decision was made instead of just having a fast to navigate and cleanly arranged UI.

[@Boooo]

The playstation X and O thing bugs me a lot, X's are used to mark things being wrong even in the west, so it still makes sense for it to be the cancel button, having it be the opposite feels wrong. It ends up making me more confused than if they went with just the "japanese" thing

[@Liggliluff]

Depends, in Sweden X is what's used to mark checkboxes, and we call them cross-boxes. For example Windows could easily change ☑️ to become ❎ for menus. Because not only that, ✓ means wrong answer in Sweden and some other countries. But way too often is the west seen as uniformed, but isn't.

[@boateye]

This is the series I subbed for so I'm glad it's still going!

[@JM-dq7xn]

Episode idea: communicating what resources / items player picks up in action games. Like, how games let player know that they picked up health / armor / ammo without being distracting. For example Half life 2 shows small cross symbol on side of the screen, when player picks up health pack.

[@15Seili]

An idea for a good design - bad design: button presses in menus. Good menus in games, especially in JRPGs, have a snappy menu navigation, which means, the least amount of presses to go the submenu you desire. In the new Star Ocean game, the menu is one of the worst examples of this. In the main menu, instead of just navigating with your control pad, you need to use the shoulder buttons (like L2/R2) to switch from different submenus. In submenus you need to use the other shoulder buttons (L1/R1) to switch characters BUT those dont work in every submenu. To get to other submenus, you sometimes need to click 5-6 times to get there. Its random, when they work and when you cant switch between characters. Its frustrating to the point where you dont want to be in the menu despite it being an RPG.

[@jasonreed7522]

And in addition to this, a lot of games from the 2000s liked to have a menu where there are only 2 options, 1 is colored white the other light grey, no other indication for which is selected, and you can wrap around the menus so you can't move the selection against 1 edge to verify if you have "Yes" or "No" selected for some critical prompt amd you have to guess what color means what. (In their are atleast 3 options the issue goes away because its now obvious which color indicates the current selection)

[@cosmicspacething3474]

You should do a video on EX bosses, and how they can improve on the base versions.

[@DesignDoc]

That's actually a really good idea.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@@DesignDoc if you want any examples, I think Kirby and the forgotten land does great with the masked Dedede fight because his attacks leave pools of lava, changing how you approach him, and he even tips the stage itself into the lava.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@@DesignDoc My dumb ass just realized you were talking about the designs lmao. Anyways yeah a video that differentiates bosses from regular enemies, and Final/EX bosses from normal bosses is still cool. Kirby and the forgotten land is still a decent example because all the EX bosses share a cool motif

[@SydneyLawton]

I'd love a good design, bad design on ports - especially now that I have a Steam Deck, and I'm playing more PC games than ever before, I'm running into situations where games I played on a system with no mouse were really poorly changed to controller layouts, and some where the controller is far superior to the mouse movement (for someone with accessibility issues, mouse movement is very difficult for me and I tend to prefer controller layouts regardless). My best example right now is Hades for good design - the mouse-aiming system for the cast on the PC version is, in my opinion (again, I have hand issues that makes mouse movements hard), horrendous. I barely ever cast on PC because I can't aim for anything. Similar with the bow. However, on the console version, I am casting all over, the bow is one of my best weapons, and everything is still very easy to get to. On the bad design side, things like Two Point Hospital, or Stardew Valley are made of a lot of menus and finnicky placements that did not translate well to a controller layout. When using a joystick like a mouse (with no input to cursor speed adjustments) it can be agonizing to line things up right, click in the right spot, or even remember the buttons to click to get to all those extra features you get from a keyboard and its litany of buttons versus a controller with minimal buttons. I think the Steam Deck being 100% customizable in layouts is amazing and is a huge design oversight with ports to other consoles. Don't even get me started on the accessibility aspect of customizable layouts as well - games where I can't change what button does what action are skipping a very basic and very good design piece of their game, and locking people with mobility or coordination impairments out of their games. I hope that wall of text makes sense... 😅

[@xfoxbox3257]

Please keep making content! Love this channel -- taking a lot of notes for an upcoming game I am designing.

[@gumbarius]

One thing for bad design I'd suggest is 2.5D games and visual clarity For example I've had a hard time getting into Ori and the Will of the Wisps because of that, or in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, I've felt like some bosses on the bigger end don't work too well, because their attacks and hitboxes are super wonky

[@kates5183]

It's not 2.5D, but crosscode would be good for this. In a 2D game, there is tons of platforming from a top-down perspective. It's awkward, and it... mostly works.

[@Cue-Ball.]

I think Metroid Dread is a good example of a game in that same genre that's 2.5D yet has good visual clarity. Samus Returns too for that matter. I feel Bloodstained was fine on darker areas but places like the bright Cathedral areas its a bit harder to see enemies. I still love the background detailed depth 2.5D games have though (Bloodstained RotN is very nice in this regard)

[@dragoknight489]

one topic i'd like to see in future installations of this series is character design. it's one of the points the intro goes over, but i don't think it's ever been brought up in the actual video content, which is a little disappointing to me as someone who's interested in character design

[@leithaziz2716]

You can check out Sugarpunch's channel for that. Allthough he mainly covers fighting game characters.

[@DesignDoc]

We do one in Vol. 13 on Advance Wars/Wargroove. But yeah, it's not one we do all that often. Every time we try to think of an idea for one, Mike thinks about the TF2 character silhouette designs and then thinks that topic has been done to death by others lol.

[@libb_y]

i imagine it's already been said (possibly done) but i would love to see you cover games that are entirely wild and over-the-top visually (Hyper Demon). Love your work!

[@Ganondward]

I got a laugh from the use of Skyward Sword as an example of over-explaining. That game was such a chore at times.

[@WhiteFangofWar]

It would definitely be an interesting test to see if 5-year-olds can navigate certain UIs without any advice or hand-holding. Granted, not every game is meant for that age group. It would be interesting to see an article on MMORPG interfaces and how they've changed and evolved over time to reduce menu clutter.

[@WillieManga]

One of my favorite tutorials is in Portal 2. Portal 1 eased you into the tests quite well, but Portal 2 just goes ridiculously and entertainingly intense. It's serene at first, just having you look up and down then move to a painting, but then you go into a century long stasis coma and the room is starting to fall apart. Wheatley then tells you this may not be good for your mental health, then tricks you into thinking the jumping button will let you speak. Finally you go through the first few levels of Portal 1 only a little revamped to be in disrepair. The comedy makes it well worth replaying from start to end, especially when GLaDOS is re-introduced as a casually vengeful mastermind.

[@tacenda3250]

This video was recommended to me, and I'm so glad it was. Subscribed!

[@Stratelier]

Oh, speaking of the "confirm/cancel" button mapping, I remember on PSX swapping the button mappings for FF7 because it felt easier, only to later discover that one of its minigames (I think it was the chocobo farming?) was hardwired with default button mapping! In a similar vein, earlier this year I picked up an indie title called "The Serpent Rogue" and had a problem with certain menus, because when they ported it for Switch they decided to invert the confirm/cancel buttons compared to other platforms -- e.g. on Playstation it's bottom button (X) confirm right button (O) Cancel, on PC it's bottom button (A) confirm right button (B) cancel, but on Switch it's _right button_ (A) confirm _bottom button_ (B) cancel. What actually makes this a problem is that when they inverted the buttons for menu navigation, they didn't _also_ invert the gameplay mappings of those buttons. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT because it makes the bottom button your "interact" button in gameplay (i.e. opens menus) *AND* your "cancel" button in menus. Of particular note is that when you're out in the field and you try to "inspect" a creature, you literally can't close the popup that appears while in range of the button prompt because every time you close the popup (B) you are hitting the same button used to summon that popup (B) in the first place and the game just pops it up all over _again._ Fortunately this could be solved by swapping your gameplay controls for the A/B buttons (making it consistent with other platforms), but it *really* shouldn't have been a thing in the first place.

[@Zer0_Ph34r]

Sound design and color design, both are things that aren't generally thought of when it comes to games design, but are hugely important. Also, just like the symbol translation in this episode, colors and sounds can come across drastically different in different regions. Red and green are great examples, in the US, and I believe most western cultures, red is usually a danger or warning color (i.e. bad) while green is the go ahead or good color. However, in China and other regions, red is seen as a lucky color, which can lead to lots of confusion when localizing games. Whatever you pick will be great though, you always put out fantastic videos

[@FireallyXTheories]

9:50 Trunic (The written language in Tunic) is a BEAST to translate man! That game has so many secrets that are still being looked into

[@dengc8973]

A game whose tutorial I really like is Just Shapes and Beats, the tutorial directly puts you into some sort of micro levels, slowly starting to add more projectiles, get slightly harder and get more intense music after each one of them, then at a certain it seems unbeatable due to an undodgeable attack until some birds pop up and tell you you can become invincible by dashing through it, the it uses that concept in a way so that you have to use that to avoid getting hit. And then the music starts to build up while all edges of the screen are filled with projectiles, and when the beat drops every single attack you saw from the previous parts of the tutorial appears at once making you have to know how to dodge each and be careful not to run into other ones. I feel like this drop is great because it shows you how chaotic the game will be from the beginning without strait up dropping you into the chaos not knowing what to do, but rather you having to recognize what attack is going to hit you and how you need to dodge it, leading to a very chaotic, intense and fun, yet not overwhelming beginning section.

[@bluefantasy6]

Hey, as always I really enjoy your good design, bad design videos. They are educational and entertaining to watch, keep up the good work! One suggestion for you to take a look at: Tower of Fantasy is a game that I enjoy playing for all its content but one of the first things that stood out to me was its horrendous UI and graphic design. You have buttons that have nearly the same color as the background (see backpack and map page), distracting moving background/ design elements, inconsistent menu navigation (side menu on the left for relics, side menu on the right in backpack, side menu on the left and in the middle for simulacras, vertical scrollbar here, horizontal scrollbar there), seemingly randomly positioned button with varying sizes (see weapons inventory) and much more I could point out.

[@Skimmer951]

One tutorial I like a lot is with Thems fighting herds, Im not adept at fighting games but theyre tutorials do a good job at walking you through not just mechanics of each character but also common things in fighting games like hit boxes, hurtboxes, frame data and more. Heck even the storymode is pretty good at integrating things you can learn as its styled a little more like an rpg with you exploring a pixel overworld before getting into fighting game matches, the first miniboss teaches you about positioning, the boss Velvet in how to deal with zoners, the common enemies "the predators" are all to make you learn to counter certain playstyles. So we get a bit off a tutorial that explains a lot and a tutorial that lets you learn by just playing the story segments as well depending on your choices.

[@iagoperez8216]

Bro, i've binge watched all videos on the series, and every-single-one of them just kept bringing back INSCRYPTION to my mind. It's just the game with the most DELIBERATE and well thought interfaces and designs i've ever seen. Don't know if you had the pleasure to play it, 'cause if not, I HIGLHY recomend it. The game on itself is a gem, and not even counting the awesome ARG within it. Hope you play it some day. Cheers

[@DokuDoki]

As a kid I used to play a lot of The Neverhood, a claymation point-and-click adventure. I didn't speak an ounce of English so a lot of the game's lore and story escaped me, but I could actually manage every puzzle all on my own... except one. Somewhere mid-game there's this color crystal puzzle where you need to rearrange the crystals in order of blue-orange-blue-blue-yellow. How do you figure this out? By looking at the wall, which has "BOBBY" written on it. A to má znamenať čo? Čo odo mňa chceš, Neverhood??

[@JudeEaley]

I was playing MHR and came to a profound realisation that the tutorial was the only bad part. You might be uncovering the map, then master utsushi would just INCESSANTLY shout "over here ace!"

[@WillowEpp]

That Splatoon Lobby is brilliant. Reminds me of the pre-match for old UT, giving you a bit to run around the map and get a feel for it (or make sure you remember it).

[@MagusDouken]

I think I recalled talking to you on Twitter about this, but the HUD for FFX's Blitzball is not exactly pleasant, especially to a first-timer... The choice of font colors on the backdrop, no shading to break apart the two, and I think you remarked about the spacing of the letters themselves...

[@randomname285]

that tunic instruction manual looks dope - use to really love it when games put a lot of effort and had unique art and stuff in their instruction manuals - got that game a while back but didn't hold my interest for too long but that makes me want to give it another shot (last time I did that I found one of my favourite games of all time in hollow knight, first impressions can be deceiving)

[@plaguelord22]

In my opinion the best tutorial I’ve ever seen is that of the original advance wars, slowly introducing each unit and letting you play around with it

[@joshukaunarak]

An example for bad design: The Italian Job for PS1 and PC. In some moments like some turns or jumps, the game suddenly briefly changes to a different camera perspective that's probably supposed to be dramatic, showing the car from the front or the side. The player is still in control, and the change in perspective comes entirely without warning, catching the player off-guard and potentially leading to a mistake because they were so surprised or couldn't see where they were going.

[@Gamester621]

It was so interesting seeing the new driver mark show up in this video, because I had no idea what it really meant! A lot of localized fighting games (and by localized I really mean the UI was translated and that's it) use it as a sign to show that... Well, an online player is new to the game, or at least to online matches. Thanks for that insight!

[@FengLengshun]

The sprout mark from FFXIV and Discord I think serves much better as a newbie indicator. Also, while X and O swap can be annoying, it has nothing on playing Switch emulated games with an Xbox controller with its A and B physically located in different places.

[@user-id3fc8qs7y]

Mother 3 has a pretty good tutorial - at the start you play as Lucas(younger twin, brother of Clays), and wake up from Claus yelling that he's playing with Dragos. You go down the stairs and see you mom Hinawa sitting on chair. You try to interact with Hinawa and you learn how to interact with NPCs, also learning that there are choices in dialogues. You go out of the house, see a frog and interact with it. Frog tells you how stories can be translated to memories and written down, then tells you "People call it 'saving' ", and asks you if you want to save. You saved your game by talking to frog, and you go to the next location. There you watch your older brother Claus play-fighting with Drago by ramming into him. Claus tells you that it's fun and gives you a try, but Alec(your grandpa) tells Claus that you don't know how to ram(Lucas is shy and timid while Claus is brave, so it explains why Lucas doesn't know how to ram in 8 years), starts telling about "imaginary button B", breaking 4th wall, and you learn how to run and ram into interactable things. But Mole Cricket comes in and asks you and Claus to fight him. You start the fight and learn how the basics of batlle system work. It may sound complicated, but it's so well connected to the game's world and you don't notice that you're being taught how to play. You feel like a 8 years old boy, who talks in the morning to his mom, changes pajamas, goes outside, being told by frog about stories and memories, trying play-fighting with Dragos alongside your older brother Claus. It's not brilliant but it has good implementation in the story, being it's part, not isolated hobby with abstract narrator telling us how to do certain things.

[@JamUsagi]

Idk if you've covered this yet, but Celeste has a tutorial segment that actually blew me away with how clever it is. In Chapter 4, the player is introduced to moving blocks, some of which the player can influence with the movement keys - Up and Down when standing on a horizontally-moving block, or Left and Right when climbing on a vertically-moving block - which aren't intuitive buttons to press in those situations, since they don't usually do much. To explain these buttons to the player, the game places them on a horizontally-moving platform, which moves towards a low ceiling. The player's first instinct is to duck with the Down key, but instead of just ducking, they also make the platform move downwards. It's a really funexpected way to discover a new mechanic, and you get the sense that Madeline is learning alongside you that shifting her weight on the block can affect how it moves. I just think it's neat.

[@sashalittledemon6766]

Bing Bang Bing being the song for the credits is hilarious

[@manicantsettleonausername6789]

The untranslatable clue immediately reminded me of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which had a horrible translation. One action a player has to perform is especially mysterious in English. In Japanese it says テ゛ホ゛ラノカ゛ケノ マエテ゛ アカスイショウヲ カカケ゛ カセ゛ヲマテ which literally translates to 'Hold a red crystal in front of Deborah cliff and wait for a wind.' but the English version of the game said 'WAIT FOR A SOUL WITH A RED CRYSTAL ON DEBORAH CLIFF.' So players who were playing the English version of the game had no idea that what they needed to do was press a ruby against the Deborah cliff, kneel, and wait for a whirlwind, something which is pretty much impossible to figure out without that essential piece of the translation missing. That's also just the top of the iceberg.

[@Zenala]

Another thing about Splatoon 3's "tutorial" is that Judd will keep popping up notifications and giving you useful info randomly when you're in the lobby. It's completely skippable if you already know stuff (by not talking to him), but for new players it's a genius idea - it's a little info that will not overwhelm them, and it's constant enough that it's not something you forget

[@kbhasi]

The video reminded me of a game idea I dreamt up where, as part of how the game's story mode would be designed, the first tutorial (showing off the basic gameplay mechanics) would take place within a dream the human lead character would have within the opening cutscene that would play after the player sets up the appearance of the player characters.

[@malicekerendu3574]

Why did the us decide that the universal design for ok meant cancel

[@pabloinz382]

did you even watch the video, they explained it right there

[@malicekerendu3574]

@@pabloinz382 I still think it's bad reasoning on their part. Not all consoles had confirm on the bottom yet they felt it necessary to make it a thing anyway. I just don't think I'll ever understand.

[@fionagibson7529]

“The US” made no decisions about any of that. Console makers did.

[@septarap3901]

It's been a long time! Good to see the series is still on.

[@michaelstump7508]

One bad design I saw was in RE2 Remake. After you arrive in the police station the game pops up with a message when you open the menu saying you can discard items with the tick icon on them. However, it only shows this once and the message is removed immediately if you click a button. I never had an issue, but I remember watching a streamer open the menu and accidentally close this message. He went about 3/4 of the game before realising you could discard those items and make space. A simple change would be to disable the ability to close the message for a few seconds. Small change, but needed!

[@Liggliluff]

Also why a tick button? This symbol is used for a lot in different cultures: to mark something - to accept - a correct answer - a wrong answer - to dismiss/clear - to discard/delete Seems they just throw it in everywhere, making it a useless symbol.

[@iLikeDucks_]

This is one of many reasons splatoon is my favorite series

[@Pelitaiteilija]

You didn't mention all the games that didn't get a specific mention but were visually featured in the video. It took me quite a bit of googling to find out the Sonic-like 2D platformer was Freedom Planet. Thanks for the video, and specifically for showing off the in-game manual of Tunic! I hadn't seen that before, and it's an awesome idea. Perhaps you could do a UI analysis based on a specific game or genre? UI Design of RTS games, UI design of platformer games, etc. You can still bring in a few examples of good design and bad design, but those could be more of cameos to this series, and wouldn't even need to appear in every video.

[@Epzilon12]

I recognized that FFT music a mile away, great choice. Speaking of which, I love FFT’s job system as it’s really cool when a job’s skills excel when using it as a sub job ability in a different main job. Such as using Samurai’s Sword spirit abilities in a class like Black Mage, whose much higher Magic attack makes them pack a much bigger punch.

[@stevieie2837]

Wario Land 4's first level is amazing and the ways it changes based on your difficulty are even better

[@Shade1453]

This is the series that got me to subscribe, I'm glad to see it back!

[@leithaziz2716]

The point about balancing how much information you cover to the player is very true and the games I play tend to run into this issue in different ways. Worse case scsenario, the game doesn't teach you anything at all or its tutorial teaches you nothing (Team Fortress 2, Tekken 7, League), or the game bombards you with tutorials and in-depth techniques that it's hard to make sure that any of that info sticks to the player's head once they're done (Many fighting games). My favorite tutorial for fighters is Guilty Gear Xrd's because it acts more as a fun minigame that happens to teach you the basics of the game, with "Mission Mode" acting as a seperate tutorial to teach you the in-depth stuff. The last thing you wanna do as a developer is make teaching feel like a chore. Street Fighter 6 seems like it's gonna follow that same philosophy but on a larger scale with the "World Tour" singleplayer mode teaching you the game before you hop online. I hope it suceeds in its goal.

[@chrisossu2070]

Should clarify that the opening mission of Driver is _not_ the tutorial. The tutorial is a separate option accessed from the main menu. The game just decided to immediately test you on everything because it wanted to homage the film The Driver.

[@mimaishawesome]

This is really interesting for me, a UI Designer that’s relatively early-ish in their career. I just finished watching the series and really loved it. I would love to see you solve some of the problems that the bad design games have. I understand that they’re bad and why, just for some of them, I’m not sure how I’d make it better. Especially the Monster Hunter menus that were a nightmare to me when I was new to the series 😂😂😂 I literally had my boyfriend handhold me through everything till I learnt how to navigate the crafting etc. I still don’t understand some of the weapon/coatings stats lol

[@ianmclean9382]

Good design, the pacing of starfox 64 bad design, the pacing of the (now translated on switch emulation) Sin and Punishment game. it touches on the cultural elements that you spoke of at the end of this video

[@TCGMeika]

Babe wake up, new banger Design Doc video btw I'd love to see a video on side minigames in RPGs like Yakuza's array of minigames or notable unique ones like Gwent or Digimon World 3's card battles. There's a lot of those so it can even be a series of vids if people like it.