UI Design
This project required UI that was thematic while not sacrificing usability. I designed a series of weathered plank and chain textures that served as the core aesthetic for the rest of the UI elements to be built around.
Effects
I wanted the core actions of the game - poking nautiluses and collecting coins -
to be as satisfying as possible. To this end I implemented a number of effects including traditional frame animation (cursor), tween animation, procedural animation (tentacle frequency modulation), and modified particles that converge on a specified screen location.
Focus
Gameplay gets hectic quickly so it was a critical project goal to ensure the player can quickly access important information. I reserved colour for the cursor and coins to keep the players attention where it needs to be and added dynamic position indicators to the screen edges to gently inform players of new nautilus locations.
