I turn complex mechanics into intuitive player experiences.
Many companies lose millions in user churn because of cluttered UX and heavy onboarding. I solve that with over 10+ years shipping games and apps like Call of Duty: MW3 & Star Wars: Hunters and more.
The UX of play is not about designing screens, it’s about understanding product strategy and human behaviour.
Say hello ABDIJNOOR@GMAIL.COM I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
Project still under NDA. Contact for more.
It is necessary to guide users through new experiences to prevent them from becoming frustrated or lost. However, this can lead to excessive hand-holding that ruins the gaming experience by removing the sense of agency and can lead to players becoming passive viewers in an interactive experience.
Read MoreSome games have great tutorials and some are innovative whiles some are so bad they become memes. Teaching users how to play your game can make or break player experience. In this post, I will explore some of the best ways of understanding players learning styles and some tutorials and teaching mechanics found in games.
Read MoreI recently revisited Cyberpunk 2077 on PC and I can say that it’s in a much better place than when it launched. However, during my play, there were a number of UX and UI inconsistencies that I noticed. And this goes to show how complex it is to make AAA games even with all CDPR’s past experience of making ground-breaking open-world RPGs. A great user experience should be like a butler, only there when you need it. But unfortunately, when it goes wrong, it really stands out.
Read MoreWe have seen some impressive leaps in innovation such as the Nemesis System and the release of UE5 which are all important for us to understand in order to craft strategies for this fast-changing industry. We have also seen disruption within the movie industry and now many analysts are predicting that the streaming wars will eventually push companies to look into subscription-based gaming models to find growth. But when does a movie become a game and a game become a movie?
Read MoreThe MDA framework is an important framework for thinking about games from both a designer’s and the players’ point of view and was developed by Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek. It’s a helpful framework to understand when developing and designing games or even introducing gamification elements to your product.
Read MoreLook, we all have stories we tell ourselves. Some are useful, most aren’t. And let’s be honest: a lot of the stories we carry around are total crap. They’re excuses dressed up as truth. They’re the reason you stay small, keep quiet, and avoid the big stuff.
Read MoreIn Ahmed Salama the Game UX Summit 2019 talk, he laid out his ideas for play-based personas and how they can be applied during the design process for AAA games. A useful insight that can be a good tool for all designers throughout the industry to be aware of and to add to their repertoire when it comes to catering for the user’s Cognitive abilities during different Phases of play.
Read MoreGiving users feedback is an important part of any digital interaction. Behavioural learning is a theory that suggests that the use of reinforcement leads to its continued occurrence. This theory is often used in video games to reinforce certain behaviours or weaken them through the use of feedback loops.
Read MoreGame reward systems can also be used to facilitate goal setting and achievement. By providing rewards for achieving specific goals, players are motivated to focus on these goals and work toward accomplishing them. This approach not only promotes skill development but also helps to promote a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with the game.
Read MoreDead Space is a sci-fi horror game, where you play as Isaac Clark an engineer stuck on The Ishimuram, a ship infested with space zombies. Your job is to fix that vessel and find your girlfriend. To maximize the playing horror experience the designers crafted a fully diegetic UI that has become very influential in the gaming industry.
Read MoreWith millions of gamers facing difficulties and barriers, whether temporary or long term. Developers are seeking better ways to provide ways remove these barriers. Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II has been praised for its industry-defining accessibility features. So what can we learn from it?
Read MoreThe more difficult something is to achieve, the more people like it. This may be counterintuitive from a UX designer’s perspective as we often strive for the easiest most friction-free experience possible. But people play games for the challenge. In fact, games often introduce harsh limitations on players and put them through difficult situations. Non more so the Souls series of games by FromSoftware.
Read MoreSmartphones have become indispensable in our daily lives. But they are not just smart companion devices, they are also tactile playthings that we use as extensions of ourselves. Although now a mature platform there are still billions of people who are still to experience life with a smartphone. So it is important for mobile designers to understand the intricacies and ergonomics of designing for that many thumbs.
Read MoreIn a lot of team-based games, there are three main roles you will see, tanks, support and damage dealers which are also known as the Holy Trinity. Popularised in MMOs but can now be found in strategy games, shooters and even sports games. When you have more than one character chances are it will involve these three roles as they are designed to provide synergy between players so they can work together to achieve team targets.
Read MoreThe success of the iPhone interface spurred a wave of innovation in the design of playful interfaces. Designers began to incorporate more tactile and haptic feedback into their designs, creating interfaces that responded to the user's touch with vibrations and other physical sensations. These interfaces were not just visual but also tactile, providing users with a more immersive and engaging experience.
Video games are a medium that can offer a wide variety of sensory experiences. Racing and rhythm games, in particular, can provide players with a unique and immersive sensory experience that enhances their enjoyment of the game.
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