Diegesis can help the player lose themselves in UI.

1. 2013
Game Design 2
Lecture 7: Immersion through UI
http://gcugd2.com
Sunday, 3 November 13
david.farrell@gcu.ac.uk

2. Reading
• Anthony Stonehouse
http://bit.ly/9isY6D
• Erik Fagerhold & Magnus Lorentzon (2009)
http://bit.ly/d0HfcW
• Gamasutra (Marcus Andrews @ EA:DICE)
http://bit.ly/9H6xuL
• SlideShare presentation from Fagerhold
http://slidesha.re/bjxr4I
Sunday, 3 November 13

3. Immersive UI
• Trend towards minimal HUD
• UI as transparent as possible to not distract
player
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4. Terminology
• Diegetic: Interface included in the game world
• Non-diegetic: Interface rendered outside game
world
• Spatial: UI Elements resented in game’s 3D space
but not be an actual in-game entity
• Meta: Representations can be in game but aren’t
necessarily visualised spatially for player
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12. Case Study: Far Cry 2
• Goes to great lengths to make UI diegetic
• especially hard for FPS games
• Uses in-game gadgets perform traditional
HUD roles
• map
• time
• weapon condition
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15. What works?
• Novelty factor
• diging bullets out of arm
• Ubisoft promoting UI in marketing
• Interaction with NPCs
• you can see what that character is doing
• injury rescue
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16. What doesn’t work?
• UI seems conflicted
• there are traditional non-diegetic HUD
elements such as: ammo; interaction
opportunities; health etc
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19. • The non-diegetic elements fade in and out
• Some elements of the UI don’t provide the
player with enough information
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21. What does it mean?
• The struggles of FC2 show that it is nearly
hopeless for (realistic FPS) games to be
playable and 100% diegetic
• If you make a late decision to compliment
your diegetic components with nondiegetic, the design will suffer - best to plan
Sunday, 3 November 13

22. Case Study: Dead Space
• Fully diegetic interface.
• Unlike most games, they had an explicit
direction that all UI elements be ‘in the
game world’
• Fairly traditional HUD system with a twist
• all rendered as in-game holograms
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24. • in addition to the holograms, Dead Space
also draws interface on the actual player
avatar
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26. What works?
• Sci-Fi Fiction lends itself to diegetic UI
• “typical UI, rendered atypically”
• Perspective
• Using player avatar as a canvas is a great
way to promote immersion
• largely depending on setting & 3rd
person camera
• Preserving Functionality
• preserves functionality but adds style
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27. What doesn’t work?
• Functionality breakdown
• the holographic 3D map failed to aid
player navigation leading to the
implementation of another,
complimentary feature - the ‘locator’ that
has a completely new diegetic spatial
method
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29. What does it mean?
• Fairly traditional interface rendered in
novel fashion.
• May be unrealised potential benefit of
diegetic & innovative UI
• Whilst the UI may have helped in the
marketing (& sales?) its benefit to the
gameplay is subjective
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30. Case Study: TF 2
• Uses mixed methods to communicate
• very much a “whatever works” approach
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34. What works?
• Mix of UI elements from each of the
categories provides for lots of info without
a cluttered HUD
• shows that UI components don’t need to
have an immediately obvious theme or be
immersive to work
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35. What doesn’t work
• the mix of styles can be perceived as a bit
messy
• inconsistencies can require more cognition
from the player
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36. What does it mean?
• TF2 has hardly any diegetic qualities but
largely succeeds in UI design.
• Shows that players will tolerate mixing
styles in an interface
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37. Summary
• Diegetic interface elements can help to
reinforce the fiction of a game and can
help keep the player immersed.
• Diegetic elements are harder to design and
integrate than non-diegetic elements
especially in FPS games like Far Cry 2
• When there is a trade off between
immersion and functionality - functionality
must be given priority
Sunday, 3 November 13