www.RamblingAboutGames.com is a place for me to share my in-depth analysis of the games I play. In particular, I want to focus on breaking down why specific parts of a game do or do not work, and try to generate productive takeaways from every game I talk about.
FF14’s UI is very customizable, but coming from a game like WoW which has a fully customizable UI, is a world of difference. So I thought it would be fun to look at the top 5 UI mods that I would install if FF14 let me.
Read MoreWe’ve talked about how Sekiro manages it’s difficulty, and found that in general, the game suffers a lot from a lack of options. Sekiro is a very specific kind of game, meant to be played a very specific way.
But what about those who want to experience the game, but need a little bit of help getting there? Let’s brainstorm some accessibility options Sekiro could have added.
Read MoreWhenever a high-profile, difficult game is released, we see the same arguments about difficulty and accessibility in games, and few titles have embodied this phenomenon as wholly as Sekiro, Many people feel they just can’t play the game, whether because it’s too hard, or because it’s lacking accessibility options.
So let’s look at why that feeling is valid, and how Sekiro could have done it better.
Read MoreOne phrase you will often hear if you hang out in gaming circles for a while, is that “there’s no wrong way to play a game”, but I don’t necessarily agree. I think one of the biggest successes in Devil May Cry 5 is that they did a good job of guiding the player down the path that is the most fun to play.
Here’s how they accomplished that…
Read MorePreviously, I posted talking about the UI/UX of Red Dead Redemption II, and came to the conclusion that, it wasn’t really worth trying to fix or analyse. But after thinking about it, and talking to friends and colleagues about it, I eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps the game’s pause menu was one area that actually was worth a look. So here is my attempt at redesigning that menu from the ground up.
Read MoreIn theory, a UX designer’s job is to solve the problem of “It wasn’t anybody’s job to think about this from the player’s point of view, and now we accidentally have an unintuitive game that’s hard to understand, and a chore to play”.
But what happens when that’s the point?
Read MoreAssassin’s Creed Odyssey sits in an interesting position wherein, it is so very similar to it’s older brother, Assassin’s Creed Origins. So many of the screens, systems, and mechanics are inherited nearly exactly, and so it serves as a fun comparison to look at what parts of it’s UI it decided to change, and why. So hey, let’s do that!
Read MoreOctopath Traveler is a game that clearly takes a large amount of inspiration from JRPGs of yore, but the question is, when we’re dealing with a genre that historically has stuck to very menu-heavy, straightofrward interfaces, how does this translate into a modern game's UI/UX experience? Let’s take a look at Octopath Traveler, and see how it fares.
World of Warcraft and I go way back- all the way to 2006 in fact. And while it's been several years now since I actively played, Blizzard still manages to pull me back for every new expansion, and the upcoming Battle for Azeroth is no exception. A new expansion means setting up my UI again for the umpteenth time, so I wanted to use this as a chance to walk through how and why I make all the UI decisions I do.
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