Dark Empire
HARD LIGHT
THE GAME
A real-time strategy game, Kingdom Conquest: Dark Empire by Hardlight takes multiplayer online gameplay to a new level. Through a huge fantasy world populated by other players, the goal is to work collaboratively with each other, to rule the kingdom of Magna, battling Monsters and gaining control over the various territories that colonise the map.
WIREFRAMES
There were a number of challenges that were necessary to address when working on the high-fidelity wireframes for Dark Empire. The UX/UI needed to accommodate both Eastern and Western players which involved maintaining consistency with font sizes, as well as, executing precise mapping of the controls for all players.
Taking into consideration a wealth of feedback from players of previous versions of the game and a huge, vocal fan base, we were able to create an intuitive, yet complex system. With the exceptional amount of statistics available to the player, one of the key features of the game, it was vital that we designed an effective information delivery system for every player, presenting them with a clear overview of their troops, battles and resources.
PROTOTYPE
Our bespoke Interactive Prototyping framework, enables us to test how robust key areas of the game are. One of these areas for Dark Empire is the isometric 3D map. It is vital to the playability of the game that every player can navigate themselves successfully around this huge fantasy world.
In addition, the prototype, helps us to test how fluid the animation of content is, further enhancing the information delivery of the menu system.
UX TO UI
Respecting the vision of the previous games in the franchise, we wanted to give a sense of style that was undoubtedly fantasy for Kingdom Conquest: Dark Empire. The buttons were considered the centrepiece of the design while other UI frames were given a more straight-forward aesthetic. By using techniques such as transparency and subtle framing which enhanced the button style, the visual clutter was reduced and re-organized.