A Beautiful Battler
Wilds was an RPG puzzle battle game that took the linker mechanic of Two Dots and evolved it into an incredibly immersive and strategic game experience. Players explored beautiful environments and collected new companion creatures called Guardians. Each Guardian had its own unique ability that would help the player face off against enemies and the combinations of Guardian types to make unique teams, was almost endless.
Guardians were a card based, collection system in Wilds that allowed players to create unique, combinations of Guardian abilities to build the best team possible for the levels ahead. The card system was a fun design challenge in which I tested several card designs, showcasing different combinations of information. In the end, we found that the simplest execution was also the most appropriate one for our game. Below are final, early and WIP card tests.
Final card and adaptive designs for different screens in the game.
Early sketches for different card layout options.
One extremely important part of my visual design process is creating prototypes that walk members of the team through UI and UX design decisions I’m considering. These prototypes get handed off to technical, VFX artists and engineers for polish and implementation. I begin making prototypes as soon as possible, even if that means using simple greyscale, geometric shapes to help solve a fundamental interaction or figure out the user experience for a core flow.
Here is a small sampling of some early development, WIP prototypes that were essential to figuring out the game design, UI/UX design and overall product design in Wilds.
Visual test for targeting different enemies, viewing enemy information and previewing damage based on player moves.
Walk-through for filling up gacha progress and adding a new card to your inventory.
UX “long” flow concept for opening level rewards.
Test for stacking team ability debuffs on enemies.
Credits
Game Director
David Hohusen
Product Management
Jordyn Gracey
Production Director
David Trammell
Game Design
Toby Sarnelle
Engineering
Ra’ad Dalaq, Ryan Wang, Eddie Cameron, Ksusha Zito, Thomas Wolfe
Visual & UX Design
Jak Horner, Ben Rudlin, Austin Roesberg
Illustration
Ray Bruwelheide, Giant Ant
3D & Technical Art
Ashley Farlow, Josh Balik
Composer/Sound Design
Ross Wariner, Cody Uhler
QA
Johnny McNair, David Trammell