Ability Arena
Info
Client: Double Edge Studios
Release: September 2022
Team: Shannon Scotten, Andrew Jenkins, Keril Artemov, efe, VicFrank
Overview
Shannon approached me with his custom game idea. He needed someone to handle all things UI/UX & design. The project came at a perfect time as I was looking to challenge my skills in a game dev environment. This was an opportunity for me to create a visual system from scratch while having the freedom to experiment and iterate quickly.
Design System · UI/UXfor Double Edge Studios
Loading Screen
Hero Selection
Terrain Selection
God Selection
Armory Window
Fully Custom Tooltips
Spell Deck
Post Game Screen
Colors
As a starting point, the colors were sampled from an existing item icon — Book of Shadows. Shannon and I both liked the palette of the book artwork.
To give colors some depth I rendered them out as materials, the bright magenta would be our highlight color so I made it shiny, like a rare crystal. The bluish/purple was made into a textile like material since I wanted something soft for large panel backgrounds. And finally, the brass-like metallic to strengthen the edges.
The backstory of the game included Gods, the Pantheon and this mystical concept of “hero-creation”. The players would be playing Gods and assembling heroes with different ability combinations.
Ancient gods are generally associated with light and holy, so it was interesting to clash that theme with dark and astral colors.
The main theme was inspired by Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. For example, the common Greek lines motif can be seen on some UI components. Or the olive branch symbol that can be seen in our logo and our shop UI.
Theme
Exploration Phase
Here is an early mockup I brought to the team. I always like to do a layout pass first before investing time into details.
