Read more about the game on my
Blog'Neppis Duel Racing' is a turn-based third person racing game. The challenge in this project was to create a fun game for a tablet device with the Unreal Engine 4.
The steps I took to get to the final result
Because of the lack of experience with either User Interface development and Unreal Engine, the process of the 'Neppis Dual Racing' project started by first watching a lot of tutorials. The first tutorials were unrelated to UI development but helped gain an understanding of the Unreal Engine environment and its possibilities.
The second group of Tutorials focused on UI development in the Unreal engine. The first prototype of a User Interface was quickly made after watching these tutorials. Pictures of this prototype are displayed above.
The 'Neppis Racing' team had a UI Designer present. All the above images were made by him. The UI designer provided a UI flow/mapping and a mid-fidelity/low-fidelity mock-up of all the screens that were necessary for the project. From the UI Flow and mock-ups, requirements were assessed and the first quick batch of icons was created. These icons were used in the earliest prototypes of the menu.
The UI flow was followed completely. However, there was a little room for personal interpretation and change within building the screens from the mock-ups (as long as all the most important requirements were met). The UI designer would occasionally update the UI mock-ups because of the feedback provided by me personally, the team or the users. This is visible by the use of the icons, I developed, in the pause menu mock-up above.
The prototyping stage and the Art design stage started at the same time in this project. Even during the project both were updated in stages, side-by-side.
Above are images of the second generation of the prototype with the new icons, backgrounds and some of the new arrangements. It was important to keep in mind that the game was going to be played on tablets. Icons needed to be big and clear and hovering was off the table.
It was clear that an Art update was necessary. To prepare for the development of the new icons, research was conducted into other games and possible art styles. Additionally, several sketches of ideas were generated.
The artboards, created with the research, helped to choose the right style and arrangement of the UI for the game.
After the final art was created, it was imported into the project. With the new art in the game's User Interface, the team agreed that, with the project’s deadline in mind, the focus for the User Interface should be on polish.
Animation and sound were added to make the User Interface more fun, interactive and to add a layer of guidance for the player.
A short reflection on the experiences of this project
The 'Neppis Dual Racing' project was a very interesting and fun project. I got to experience Unreal Engine for the first time and I had never developed a User Interface before this project, so everything was new.
User interface development allowed me to work both creatively, creating the art, and technically, creating the unreal blueprint systems behind the front-end to make everything work. Moreover, this was one of the projects where I had more time for polish and animation.