With design things may start in one direction and end up in another, it’s all a part of the prosses. At the start of the development of Ripple and Frawg: The Seasonal Song we were leaning more towards a storybook feel, with cutscenes emerging like out of a pop-up book. This idea was reflected in the early UI designs: For example, the original main menu was planned to look like a book with the middle of the screen being split in half, and the transitions between menus looking like a page turn. This, however, started changing when the cut scenes began taking on a more theater-like style, and soon the UI followed suit, resulting in the current UI designs also being theater inspired.
This fresh style of UI led to more research into how to implement it thematically and synergistically. This involved looking into how real theaters were set up; how their curtains are set up and move, how their lighting looks and works, and how the stage and setting convey a certain depth of field. We also looked into games that have a similar UI style like the PS3 game Puppeteer.
Another design decision that was made earlier on in development was to not include a game HUD or in-game UI. This means that while playing Ripple and Frawg: The Seasonal Song there is no UI during gameplay, only for cutscenes and menus. This was not the case at the start of development where we had planned to have images of Ripple and Frawg at the bottom of the screen, as well as an icon to reflect the current season somewhere near the top of the screen. However, when the game started taking a more exploratory nature, we reflected on this decision and realized that having a HUD would limit how much of the environment the player will be able to see. This would’ve affected player agency regarding puzzle gameplay as well as their ability to take in the beautiful environment. This change allowed us to put more focus on other UI elements like our menus and character selection, but also affected how we displayed things throughout the game to our players: Since there was going to be no UI in the game, we had to use other methods to show the player where to go.
The key goal of the UI in Ripple and Frawg: The Seasonal Song is to tie the game together as a whole. This goal is what lead us to the decisions we made for UI during development of Ripple and Frawg: The Seasonal Song. We realized that the UI design isn’t just about tying the 2D cut scenes into the 3D gameplay, but also involves making the whole game flow together at one unit.
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