Working on the UI for Crash has been a challenging but fulfilling journey, working on one of my personal childhood favourite IPs and seeing the Mobile adaption already bring joy to Crash fans around the world. Below is just a sample of some of the engaging features we delivered for Hard Launch.
THE MISSION COMPUTER
The Mission Computer is an example of the different phases we passed to create a design that is simple, streamlined, angular, cartoony, 90s and "Crashy". The Lead UX Designer and myself worked together to achieve these various design milestones.
The early design phases were inspired by "Order Boards" commonly used in resource management games. The difference with The Mission Computer is that Henchmen need to be defeated before being able to battle a boss, and for goal simplification eventually only 1 boss was available at a time. To really reinforce the visualisation that the henchmen were part of a gang to the boss, the hexagon formation was created.
THE PRODUCTION BUILDINGS
These Screens followed very similar phases to the Mission Computer due to being so closely connected to the core loop to one another. There are 4 different elements for the production items (Nitro, Frosty, Inferno, Oxide) which were all in a single lab in the first phase. They were later split into 4 separate upgradable buildings and the selection was switched to a reel to highlight 1 draggable object at a time. The serums themselves were upgraded to weapons at a later phase.
UI STYLES
We created a distinction between the general UI and the Boss Battle UI to reinforce the different run types within the game. UI Assets were designed so they would be easily interchangeable within scenes and UI transitions.
