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10 things you might not have noticed in Fortnite

Celia Hodent, Director of UX for Epic Games (2013-2017), breaks down Fortnite's UI/UX and goes over the small details that many players may not notice.

Released on 9/13/2018

Transcript

00:00
When the UX of a game is done right,
00:02
it just feels natural. It feels good to play.
00:05
You don't even notice it.
00:06
I'm Celia Hodent. I was Director of UX at Epic Games.
00:09
And here are 10 things that you might not have
00:11
noticed in Fortnite.
00:13
(high intensity chase music)
00:15
The HUD
00:17
So when you create a game you wanna make sure
00:19
that players don't have to remember too much stuff.
00:22
Because our memory is quite limited
00:26
and we forget things all the time. Which is normal.
00:29
So what we do is we put information in HUD or in
00:32
the UI pop-ups so that we reduce what we call
00:36
the memory load.
00:37
If you look at the HUD on Fortnite there's a lot of little
00:39
things that have been worked on again and again and again.
00:43
To make sure that players will naturally understand
00:45
what's going on.
00:47
One of the examples, if you look at the icon for
00:50
the weapons. There's always the little, smaller icon
00:53
in the icon, showing you what type of ammunition
00:57
the weapon is taking so that players won't have to
01:01
remember what type of ammunition they need to craft and
01:04
they craft the right ammunition.
01:06
We try to always show the control that you need to use
01:10
to do the action that you wanna do as a player in a game.
01:14
For example, if you want to swap from the building mode
01:17
to the shooting mode, we show you the keys that you need
01:20
to press to be able to swap from one mode to the other.
01:24
This is allowing players, to not have to remember these
01:27
controls and doing the things naturally.
01:30
Another important information in HUD is information
01:32
about your health. We really need players to have
01:35
a clear understanding on their level of health
01:38
and one of the important things to do is to try to
01:41
have a green health bar. Because if you have a green
01:42
health bar, then you save the red color and red is
01:46
a very good color to contrast
01:48
with what's happening in the background.
01:49
To really save for when you're getting damaged
01:52
or when you're bout to die.
01:54
Another element in the HUD that's quite important
01:57
is showing the material that you have.
01:59
You know, Fortnite is about building. This is a very
02:02
important pillar in the game. In the HUD you
02:06
always see the three types of material that you have.
02:09
You know, like: wood, metal, or bricks.
02:14
This is also very important for players to not
02:17
have to remember how much they have.
02:20
This is what we call an affordance,
02:22
a cognitive affordance. You see on the HUD what material
02:27
have and is allowing you to build accordingly.
02:31
Harvesting.
02:32
Harvesting is also a very important pillar in Fortnite
02:36
and it was very important to convey what players are
02:39
harvesting and how efficient they are in harvesting.
02:42
There's also a feature that's really interesting
02:44
in Fortnite. It's called a weak point feature.
02:47
When you harvest, you're gonna have a little pop-up
02:49
on the screen, showing you that, hey, there's a weak
02:52
point in that element and if you aim at that weak point
02:54
you're gonna harvest faster.
02:56
This is a really important feature because we don't want
02:59
players to feel bored when they harvest.
03:02
That was a very good addition to Fornite by designers
03:06
to make the harvesting pillar more exciting and also faster.
03:11
Whenever you hit the weak point it makes the little tone
03:14
that's really soothing and if you hit several weak points
03:17
in a row, you hear different music tones.
03:21
(escalating tones)
03:24
This is also feedback to tell players: Hey, this is a
03:27
cool thing you need to do. Polishing the signs, so the
03:31
sign is how the weak point's gonna look like
03:35
to draw player's attention and to invite them to use it.
03:40
The feedback, once players are using it, what do they hear?
03:43
What is the animation? All that has to be very polished
03:46
for the features that are really core to the experience
03:49
of the game to make sure that it's gonna be intuitive
03:52
and offers good UX.
03:55
Signs and feedback.
03:58
Signs and feedback, again, are really important to polish
04:01
so that players can understand, just through their
04:03
experimentation of the game: what's going on.
04:06
If you look at the signs and feedback when players
04:09
are building is really important. If you try
04:11
to place a wall in an area that you can't,
04:15
you have that red feedback.
04:16
If you're trying to construct a world that,
04:19
you don't have enough material for that,
04:20
you have a feedback.
04:22
You try to show players that if they can change material,
04:26
which is not necessarily easy for players to understand.
04:28
But, if you look at the UI in building, there's signs
04:33
telling you: you can swap building material
04:36
by pressing that key.
04:38
Also, when you place the building, there's
04:40
a clear feedback that the building is getting built.
04:43
Also, try to signify to the player how they can
04:47
edit doors or windows.
04:49
This is really crucial in Fortnite because
04:51
building is a very important pillar in the game.
04:54
Polishing all this information so that players,
04:58
without having to read a ton of tutorial text,
05:01
can try to figure out how this works just through
05:04
the signs of feedback available in the UI;
05:06
that's really important.
05:09
Game feel.
05:11
When talking about user experience in a game
05:12
we look at usability of the game to be used.
05:15
But, we also look at engageability:
05:17
the ability of the game to be engaging.
05:20
The element that we really care about in games
05:22
is called game feel.
05:24
We wanna make sure that interacting with the game
05:26
is gonna be exciting. It's gonna be fun.
05:30
It's just pleasurable. We like to just look at the
05:33
world evolving in front of us. But, also, we love
05:36
to interact with it.
05:37
When you buy a loot box. It's not just: you click,
05:40
you open, and you get all the stuff in there;
05:43
all the cards that you wanted. For example,
05:44
like in a card pack.
05:46
In Fortnite, the game feel is very polished in there.
05:49
For example, the card pack looks like a pinata.
05:52
Which is a metaphor that's fit well the world of
05:55
Fortnite. It's cute, it's fun. If you're playing
05:59
on PC, if you move the mouse around you're gonna
06:01
see the eye of the llama actually following your mouse.
06:05
This is making the interaction more fun.
06:08
Also, when you're about to hit the pinata, you're
06:11
gonna see the eye of the llama squinting.
06:14
It's reacting to what you're doing. Of course,
06:17
it's talking to you. Once you open the pinata,
06:19
there's a celebration and the pinata's still
06:22
talking to you.
06:23
All of that is about game feel. Making it fun
06:26
to interact with a specific system or feature.
06:31
Onboarding
06:33
Hearing about how you onboard your players
06:35
and how you teach them the mechanics and
06:37
the systems of your game is really crucial.
06:39
'Cause you want them to be competent and
06:41
be motivated into using specific features
06:44
without them feeling it boring to go through tutorials.
06:49
Because, usually, players hate tutorials.
06:51
But, they hate even more, feeling that the game
06:53
is unfair or feeling that they don't really know
06:55
how to get out of a situation.
06:58
You have to place the players in a situation that
07:00
is gonna be meaningful for them to learn about
07:03
specific mechanics. So it doesn't feel that we're
07:06
trying to teach them about something.
07:08
It feels more about, they're part of the game
07:11
already and they're experimenting stuff in the
07:14
game to overcome obstacles and through that
07:17
learn about the game.
07:19
In Fortnite, it was really important to teach players
07:23
about the core elements of the game: combat,
07:26
building, scavenging, or harvesting.
07:29
In that, you have to develop your home base.
07:32
This is your persona in the game. This is what you
07:36
progress. This is what you grow.
07:37
Whenever you start playing Fortnite
07:39
and save the world.
07:40
The first thing you do when you take over control
07:43
is, you're in a cave and then you gonna see
07:47
enemies: the husks. That are about to get at you
07:51
but, there's a low wall in front of them.
07:53
So, you see them actually trying to destroy that
07:56
wall. Immediately, it tells you: well, there's
07:59
walls in Fortnite and enemies are stopped by
08:01
these walls. So you learn about, this is something
08:04
that I can use to protect myself.
08:05
This is when we actually ensure that players are
08:08
able to aim and shoot.
08:10
You are, kind of, protected because there's a wall
08:12
but there's still some pressure, some excitement.
08:14
Because, zombies are here so you want to,
08:18
of course, kill them.
08:20
This is allowing us to make sure that the players
08:23
are comfortable with controls without being completely
08:27
disengaged with the coarseness of the game.
08:30
In the onboarding, another part that's
08:32
really interesting is: at some point, you are in
08:35
a cave and you want to get out of the cave. But,
08:37
you can't get out of the cave. This is when we
08:40
tell you: hey, you can actually build stairs.
08:42
This is how you can get out of stuff. Get out of pits
08:46
and explore the world.
08:48
We put, specifically, the player in a meaningful
08:51
situation where they would want to learn about
08:54
a specific feature. In that case: building.
08:56
This is how we teach them the first steps of building.
09:01
Enemy health bars.
09:03
In the UI, what we're trying to do
09:05
is to make sure that players understand very quickly
09:08
what they have to do and what's dangerous to them.
09:10
That's the reason why we, usually, try to save
09:12
the red color for something that's really,
09:15
really dangerous right now.
09:18
So: when you're getting hurt or when
09:19
you're about to die.
09:21
That's the reason why in Fortnite, for example,
09:23
in Save the World, the health bar of
09:26
the enemies are not red, but orange.
09:28
Orange is still a good color to signify that
09:30
this is a bad guy. But it's not gonna overload
09:34
the player with tons of red color.
09:36
So when the player is getting hurt,
09:38
the feedback on that is red and this really stands out.
09:43
By removing the red color everywhere and just saving it.
09:48
Reserving that color for when something very
09:50
dangerous is happening to player, it's helping
09:53
players react faster and understand better
09:55
what's going on.
09:58
The loading screen.
10:00
Loading screens are important because
10:04
the game is gonna load and player's gonna have to wait.
10:07
And, we hate waiting. This, we call the psychology
10:09
of waiting: we hate waiting. It's painful.
10:13
On the loading screen, you need to have stuff that's
10:15
exciting for players to look at or to play
10:18
if you're able to add some mini-games in
10:20
the loading screens.
10:21
But you can also take advantage of the loading screen
10:24
to tell players about something.
10:27
For example, if you have games with different modes,
10:29
like in Fortnite.
10:30
You can use the loading screen for that specific mode
10:32
to tell players about the objectives of the mode.
10:35
This is where you have to keep it sweet and short.
10:38
If you look at the loading screens in Fornite,
10:40
there are three main elements and they focus
10:43
on the main objectives that players have to do.
10:46
Not necessarily the tiny little details for the players.
10:51
They're gonna figure the details out. They just
10:52
need to understand the objectives.
10:56
Accessibility.
10:58
Accessibility is also very important for a game.
11:02
You want your game to be able to be played by
11:05
all sorts of players. Including players having
11:08
some sort of disabilities.
11:10
We look at stuff like controls. Making sure that
11:14
players can plug any type of controller on the game.
11:18
That's the reason why, usually, in games we try to offer
11:21
a complete remapping of control.
11:22
That's really important for some players.
11:25
Another example would be the colorblind mode.
11:28
About 8% of the male population has some sort of
11:32
colorblindness so you need to take that into account
11:35
when you design your game.
11:36
Be careful with the colors you're using. There's
11:39
a way to anticipate, depending on which sort of
11:41
colorblindness we're talking about to make sure that
11:45
the colors are gonna contrast. But also, usually,
11:47
we try to never: only use color to tell about
11:50
a certain feature. We use color and shape.
11:53
Or, we're gonna use other ways to convey information.
11:58
Usually, never use color by itself to signify
12:02
something to players.
12:05
Searchable objects.
12:07
It's all about making sure that players don't have
12:09
to remember all this information that
12:11
we don't want them to remember because we
12:13
want them to focus their attention and to remember
12:16
other information that's really core for the
12:18
experience of a game.
12:19
Whenever you go close to a searchable object,
12:22
you will have a pop-up telling you what key you
12:25
need to press to search that object.
12:27
This is a little thing that have players
12:29
not to have to remember that specific key.
12:35
Pinning functionality.
12:36
The pinning functionality is also a feature
12:39
that helps players not having to remember a ton
12:41
of information that we don't care about.
12:43
If you want to craft a specific weapon in Fortnite,
12:47
what you can do is look into your inventory.
12:50
You're like, Oh, I want to craft this thing.
12:51
But you don't have all the ingredients that you
12:53
need to craft it right away.
12:55
What you can do is: you click on the pin functionality
12:58
and then it's gonna be pinned directly on your HUD.
13:02
Then, on the HUD, players can see all the ingredients
13:04
they need to gather and they don't have to remember
13:07
that information. This is also a way to reduce
13:10
the memory load. This is what we call
13:12
a functional affordance.
13:14
It's a functionality that developers put in there
13:17
to help players accomplish their goals.
13:19
This is a team effort, the Fortnite team did
13:21
a great job at polishing a lot of little details
13:24
so that players will have a great experience
13:26
playing Fortnite.
13:27
(intense music)