UI Art Design For Solar Showdown, BYU's 2023 Real-Time Strategy Game.

I had the opportunity to art direct BYU's 2023 Video Game Capstone project and with art directing came the responsibility to design the UI assets for the game. 

I came into this knowing little about creating video games, and nothing about UI design. Through trial and error I have learned a lot from this experience. On this project with the UI design some of the things I helped design are the logo, title, HUD, Cross Hair, and Tower Cards. 

The title went through multiple iterations before I set on the final design to match the rest of the aesthetic of our UI. 

UI needs to communicate to your players what exactly is happening in the game, what they're supposed to do, and how to win. I tested different versions and got feedback from play testers on where they looked and if they understood how to win the game. One thing that was tested the most was where the solar meters should go. Eventually, I decided to keep the solar bars at the top as that was where we had the most success. 

The size of the UI was another aspect that was developed and studied through other video games. Lots of games have less UI or take up less space. With a real-time strategy game, it's more challenging to have a small UI as you have lots of info you have to communicate to your players. However, we managed to make the UI as small as possible but still readable. 

These rotating tower cards were made so the player could decide which tower they wanted to place down. Each tower card was made to have an individual icon to represent the tower. Droid factory, shield, turret, and solar tower. By pressing either LB or the RB button on your controller you are able to rotate quickly and decide which tower to place.