AoH Preproduction Exploration
UI/UX Design
Classic Fantasy genre with a
modern twist:
Age of Heroes was a 3v3 mobile battler developed for 5th planet games. This title was intended to be modern and stylized. The initial explorations were flat and crisp. We wanted to see how far we could push a genre that is typically associated with a lot of detail and texture. The results were something fun and fresh.
Modern Fantasy
To achieve this modern look we we developed characters that were very stylized. Some even lacked facial features. The UI to complement that needed to be very simple, with color block UI, no textures and no gradients. I experimented with ombre lists, and elementally based UI for the characters to enhance immersion.
Options for minimalist Iconography
With a minimal color block UI, the icons gave us the opprtunity to create a little visual excitement, which is essential for games that are heavily dependent on UI for the meta gameplay. ON of the techniques that really worked here was a long shadow, which gave the icons a sense of depth which helped with the screen hierarchy.
Benefits of Preproduction:
We loved this look as a creative team! However after some testing and review, we decided to push the details of the style a bit more traditional. That's the great thing about doing preproduction! It allows us to do a lot of explorations to find the right direction for the product without being in to far along the line in terms of assets creation. By creating this vertical slice we could make the decision early on that this wasn't enough detail for our intended audience.