Outer Worlds is a first person action role playing game created by Obsidian Entertainment. Within this personal project, I was interested in seeing how this game would translate into a mobile context.
PROGRAMS- Illustrator/ Photoshop/ Figma
The overview screen gives basic information about the player’s location, current quest, and character equipment. To navigate to other sections of the menu while also saving space, a drop down was also created and placed on the top right corner.
In terms of detailed views of each, descriptions were kept on the right for continuity, with small navigation options on the top center of the screen. These small navigation options are used for in the inventory, team, and player character screens, and include armor/weapon options, perks, and character information. The inventory screen has it’s own set of options, which filter items based on their use.
Comparing is done differently as well. Originally, the player would have to select two weapons/armor in order for 2 pop ups to appear for the player to compare. In the mobile version, comparing is done automatically with the currently equipped item and a currently selected item from the inventory list (with a golden arrow indicated which currently equipped item is being compared). The detailed description will indicate whether something with more or less based on colored arrows.
Investing in traits for abilities and perks work similarly to the original game, but can only be done one at a time. Screen space is prioritized for showing abilities and perks rather than for deselect, select, and confirm options. An "Add marker" button was also added to the mobile version in case players wanted to set their own destination on the map.
Outer World’s UX is rather streamline and similar to other single player action role playing games. Majority of the game is spent in world aside from when the player goes to buy items, check their inventory and quests etc. In terms of controls, the only major elements that stick out in terms of gameplay are the tactical time dilation skill and companion attacks. The rest seem to follow the typical RPG control scheme.
Om Tandom wrote a great article about fps games and the experience of it on mobile. In it, one of them main takeaways was how load management affects gameplay, and that “easing” or “erasing” loads helps with it. Both of these are vital to a mobile fps experience, and takes game design into experience as well. Because of this, every element changed needs to be thoroughly tested and refined.
Taking a look at the controls for Outer Worlds, there are things that could be “erased” or cut out to maximize space for a mobile screen. Elements like the exp bar, or debuff meter, don't need to be seen regularly while playing, and can be excluded or moved to the menu screens. In fact, companion movement and commands could also be erased to decrease the cognitive load on the player.
In terms of easing loads, this refers to the combination or simplifying of elements or gameplay mechanics due to the lack of precision and constraints of playing on a mobile phone. For example, in Modern Combat 5, there are options for player to enable aim assist, auto shoot, and auto crouch. Having these enabled decreases the load of the player and allows the to focus on other elements of the game.
In Outer Worlds, these can be applied as well. Allowing the player to customize their control setup to their play style, allowing aim assist, and other controls would ideally enhance their gameplay experience.
For the gameplay, the main elements include moving, healing, shooting, TTD, reloading, jumping, crouching, and weapon switching. Information for team, health, and navigation are also present. However, instead of having a bar under the hp like in the original game, the TTD gauge has been implemented around the button as a ring. It will slowly deplete as the player uses it and will be easy to recognize and identify compared to a regular progress bar.
Health and reloads are regular buttons, but will glow red when the amount left is below 5. This is used to quickly notify the player in terms of how much they have, and will help them to determine the next course of action like switching to another weapon or running away from battle. If a player has an abundant amount of health packs and ammo, the amount wont be shown in game as it would clutter the screen and not provide any useful information to the player.
The quarter wheel on the bottom right corner is for switching weapons and is based off the weapon wheel in the console version of the game. To use it, the player would tap or swipe the bottom right corner of the screen and select their weapon. Tapping a weapon or sliding to it would trigger the wheel to minimize. The wheel was designed so that the player would be able to switch their weapons quickly without having to reach anywhere far from either side of the screen.
Finally, secondary interactions such as talking, lock picking, and so on are displayed above the health pack button and will appear when nearby the interaction target.
For chests, an unlock button will appear above the heal icon. The actual chest itself will have the skill level needed to unlock the chest, as well as how many lockpicks the player would need to spend on it.
Previously, the skill level was displayed similarly to the lock picks. This caused confusion for a couple of players (including myself) on whether it was indicating if the resource was dispensable. To help with this confusion, i removed the “x/x” format and opted just for a single number with a color matching it. Red would indicate that the player would need 10 skill points or more in order to open the chest, and orange would indicate that the player would need 5 or less. The color indicators were created as players could equip certain armor and weapons in order to raise the skill level. Given the right circumstances, the player could simply change their equipment if their skill was not high enough to open the chest.
Overall, I learnt a great deal on fps games, their UX, and got some UI practice in terms of emulating styles. I think its interesting adapting certain games to different contexts, while taking their environment into account. I think in the future, it would be interesting to do something like this on a more complex game (in terms of UX) , or a game with a different genre.
