Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
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Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
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Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#2That said, one of the killer features of the tactical fps game Valorant is the sound you hear when defeating another player. It’s incredibly pleasant and satisfying in a way I haven’t experienced before, to where it feels a bit like a psychological conditioning reward. Despite being a somewhat similar noise, the effect is the polar opposite of the Windows string hit.
If done in quick succession it builds to a little sting at the fifth kill and if that wins the round, an announcer declares “ACE!” in a way that players clearly find extremely gratifying.
I’m not sure how to pull this off in an app. People have certainly tried, but, as an example, the ‘woosh’ noise when sending an email in Outlook isn’t something I look forward to.
However, I think I’d file this under ‘great UX inspires great UX,’ as there are plenty of games with bad or frustrating UX.
Also, is it a common thing now to call any complex branching hierarchy ‘fractal’?
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#3That said, one of the killer features of the tactical fps game Valorant is the sound you hear when defeating another player. It’s incredibly pleasant and satisfying in a way I haven’t experienced before, to where it feels a bit like a psychological conditioning reward. Despite being a somewhat similar noise, the effect is the polar opposite of the Windows string hit. If done in quick succession it builds to a little…
Jeff Goldblum visited a game developer for his eponymous TV show. Even as a musician, he was surprised and enchanted by the idea of an "audio reward".
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#4Video games are notorious for shitty UX. Notably when you've got a title that was designed for consoles and hastily ported to PC, or sometimes vice versa.
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#5Video games are notorious for shitty UX. Notably when you've got a title that was designed for consoles and hastily ported to PC, or sometimes vice versa.
Maybe true for the last part, but I don’t think notorious is the right word. Nearly everything about a video game is UX — design and software coming together. Video games are immensely popular, and most people have several games that they love or enjoy. I would posit that you can’t really enjoy a video game if it has terrible UX, because that would mean you can’t interact and engage with it as a video game.
As a result, I would say that most popular video games actually have very good UX, relatively speaking. Games like Overwatch have optimized around combat, games like Valheim have optimized around a really cool environment. A game like Minecraft has really nailed the UX of building and crafting for a lot of people.
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#6Making my own list for fun:
1. Z-targeting in Ocarina of time, brilliant.
2. A bubble that eventually explodes limiting how long you can block in Smash Bros (clear visual indicator).
3. All of Destiny’s in-game menus.
4. WoW’s action bar/frame UI has yet to be dethroned.
Horrible UIs:
1. Eve
2. Those old Morrowind games
3. Crusader Kings
4. If anyone wants to see what a Windows operating system inspired UI in a game looks like, please download Black Desert Online.
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#7I think one good example of "good UX" is Id Software's Doom 4, a game that has a phenomenal UI and great placement of relevant info. Weapon status is tracked adjacent to the crosshair, while cooldowns and health bars were relegated to the corners of the screen. If you played that game's campaign, you're probably well familiar with how dang good that HUD is.
Then we get to Doom Eternal, the sequel to Doom 4. Doom Eternal is a really fun game, but it's UI is a direct downgrade from it's predecessor. If you don't believe me, I suggest you compare them yourself: the difference is quite staggering. Gone are the easy-to-read colors from Doom 4, now replaced by strange and ugly gradients that waste too much brainpower to read and contribute to digital noise. The cleaner UI layout has also been desecrated, swapping the cooldowns to appear next to the crosshair and putting weapon stats in the corner... what??? I will never fully understand how any of this game's UI passed QA or sold as many copies as it did when it looks this ugly.
That being said, Doom 4 and Eternal are both fantastic games, and you can pick them up for pretty cheap these days. It runs on relatively low end hardware (any dgpu should work) and even runs on Linux!
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#8Video games are notorious for shitty UX. Notably when you've got a title that was designed for consoles and hastily ported to PC, or sometimes vice versa.
Maybe true for the last part, but I don’t think notorious is the right word. Nearly everything about a video game is UX — design and software coming together. Video games are immensely popular, and most people have several games that they love or enjoy. I would posit that you can’t really enjoy a video game if it has terrible UX, because that would mean you can’t interact and engage with it as a video game. As a resu…
Skyrim has sold millions and millions and millions of copies with an inventory system that is downright painful, and essentially requires third-party mods to fix. It's not an isolated example.
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#9No mention of Halo 2 I see. Halo 2 had an amazing UI/UX for forming multiplayer parties, keeping the party together across multiple games, managing the party members, and keeping the party together while the 'leader' managed which matchmaking playlist the party was in. It took a long time, but it seems like most modern multiplayer games have come around to doing things Bungie's way; It's a shame it took so long. A lot of games suffered not for gameplay but for game setup.
Re: Video Games Inspire Great UX (2019)
#10That said, one of the killer features of the tactical fps game Valorant is the sound you hear when defeating another player. It’s incredibly pleasant and satisfying in a way I haven’t experienced before, to where it feels a bit like a psychological conditioning reward. Despite being a somewhat similar noise, the effect is the polar opposite of the Windows string hit. If done in quick succession it builds to a little…
It's not just about the sound but the timing. Valorants sounds hit at precisely the most satisfying moment.