GRID

Role / Responsibilities: Technical Design, UX Design, Level Design

Team: Duo Development

Tools: Unity, C#

Development: 4 weeks

Game Overview

GRID is a local multiplayer, PVP game designed to feel like an arcade experience.

Players start alongside each other where they can attempt to block one another or seek useful power ups around the level.

The game’s design and visual aesthetic are heavily inspired by TRON.

Easy to grasp UI & UX

Arcade Level Design

I designed half of the levels in the game. Our design goal with the levels was to keep things fairly straightforward but aim to just spice up a few of the later rounds.

We stuck to primitive shapes and icons for level designs, keeping the wire frame, retro arcade aesthetic.

Some levels simply blocked players from one other at the start of the round or made pathing to one another challenging. Helping shake up the competition. Others were more fun designs to add some novelty to the rounds.

Conclusion / Post Mortem

We tested the game often and iterated a lot.

Originally the abilities were stored and manually activated by players. During testing we noticed this was hard for some players to do, so we changed the abilities to instead be not stored and activated immediately when picking up.

This simplified the control scheme and even contributed to the retro arcade feel. With abilities feeling more similar to Pacman powerups. Based on playtesting making this change increased player engagement overall and seemed to be a net positive across our testing pool.

I’m the most happy about the visual aesthetic. Because we had a clear visual goal for the project from the start we didn’t lose time on iteration for UI elements we were also able to make some thematic design documentation / pitch materials to accompany the project.

Technical Design

I designed and scripted the GRID gameplay mechanics and game loop.

  • I designed three collectible combat abilities: two player buffs and one opponent debuff for gameplay variety.

Something we learned during testing was that players were so focused on the gameplay they often didn’t have time to look at the ability UI if they weren't as skilled.

  • I focused on making abilities visually and audibly clear, so they’re always understandable even without relying on UI.

I designed and scripted all the GRID UI.

  • I designed the ability UI to be simple so it was immediately obvious

  • I ensured it was clear in what it represented, fit the theme of the game and could be easily checked to see ability timers.

  • I designed it to be large so it was immediately visible to players and to build on the retro aesthetic.

Additionally the UI elements are by default all white however the ability UI icons would match the color of the ability pickup as the timer ran out for more UX connection to each picked up ability during the round.