Why not ask me about Sevastopol’s safety protocols?
The Alien Isolation Mobile port was my first rodeo as the Lead and only designer on a project. Work on the game started shortly after the release of Total War Rome Remastered.
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Alien Isolation would provide a very new challenge. Previously, Feral’s mobile ports were either RTS/Management games or Racing games, Alien Isolation would be the first 1st person game to be worked on as a mobile port.
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My main responsibilities on the project were Designing and Maintaining the GDD, Redesigning parts of the game including UI and controls to work seamlessly with touch controls, gathering and actioning feedback provided by QA in order to improve the experience & liaising with other departments to make the game the best it could be.
The Final Product
Touch Optimised UI/HUD
When designing the UI/HUD for Alien Isolation. It was important to retain a good user experience for those playing with Gamepads as well as with Keyboard & Mouse while adding support for Touch Controls. For the HUD, that meant keeping the UI elements on screen to a minimum while shifting non-interactive elements to the top of the screen as to not get covered by the players thumbs. The rest of the UI saw interactable elements that were previously towards the top or centre of the screen moved to a more reachable position at the bottom and/or sides of the screen to make touch controls more convenient. Examples of this can be seen in the Map/Journal and in the Crafting screen.
Contextual Virtual Control Pad
Early on, I identified that controls would be the greatest decider on whether this game would be a successful mobile port. This is especially true when considering Alien Isolation employed a very harsh instant death mechanic. I needed to make sure that no player felt they only died because of the controls. As such, I relied on iteration to get the controls just right. This came from playtesting the game myself over multiple playthroughs as well as feedback from QA playtests. The on-screen control pad was designed to not get in the way of the player – as such I designed the buttons to be context sensitive. Finally, I designed the on-screen button to optionally provide feedback through haptics when pressed to give the player needed assurance ordinarily missing when using a touch screen.
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A big challenge came with the game’s gunplay. While Isolation is a first-person shooter, confronting enemies is actually something the player should avoid at all costs. As such solutions for handling gunplay seen in mobile games such as Call of Duty Mobile wouldn't be suitable. Instead, I designed an Auto-Aim system which would reduce the likelihood of an accidental misfire that could lead to the players death while allowing the player the stand and fight when needed. The behaviour of the Auto-Aim system was tuned for each weapon and enemy type to aim for the most appropriate points.
Virtual Control Pad Editor
Much like designing a physical gamepad, one of the hardest challenges of designing Touch Controls is that people’s hands and devices come in all different shapes and sizes. This means that a touch control layout can be great for one person, may be unusable for another. As such, I designed the Virtual Control Pad (VCP) Editor. This editor would allow players to customise the size, position, opacity and much more for each button.