HUD Design: Inventory Display

The Weapon Element/Inventory Display is one of the most crucial elements in the design of the Crystalline HUD. Due to the weapon sandbox having a single type of ammunition it is tasked with providing the player with a litany of vital information.

First, the player must know what weapons are available to them. To achieve this goal I created silhouette sprites for each gun and massaged the actual outlines to produce several visually coherent yet unique identifiers for the different weapon types. While the player already has this information in the form of the first person gun mesh, it is important to reinforce this information to the player and follows in the tradition of first person shooters established all the way back with Wolfenstein 3D. Additionally, the sprites are designed to face the edge of the screen rather than the center in effort to accentuate the ammo readouts with the eye leading nature of the weapon barrels.

HUD sprite sheet for weapon icons.

Weapon Design: The Beam Gun

Crystalline features five guns prominently: the pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, marksman rifle and beam gun. While each gun does deserve a moment in the limelight and a discussion of its overall role in the game, my recent work with the beam gun makes it prime for discussion.

Born by an offhand comment from Nick and a need for a gun that felt unique in the sandbox, the beam gun serves as a sort of twin to the assault rifle. The beam gun is best described as a marriage of the link gun from Unreal Tournament and a Tesla Coil. When the player shoots a beam of raw green crystal energy bursts from the tip of the gun. When it makes contact with a player or damageable object it concentrates into a golden beam signifying a connection, making it evident that you have a connection to another player. Mechanically, it is classified as a variation on the assault rifle: sacrificing range and damage for ease of use.

For the most part the beam gun’s core mechanic has been retained throughout its iterations. When a player wielding the beam gun successfully lands a “hit” on an opponent or damage accepting actor in the world they acquire a “lock” on that player and apply damage so long as the player keeps the beam gun within a certain angle to the “locked” target. Naturally, this mechanic makes the beam gun extremely potent at the extent of its range, as maintaining this angle at 25 meters is far simpler than at 1 meter. Early in the lifespan of the beam gun it had a reputation for being the “Swiss Army Gun” in our weapon sandbox for this very reason (coupled with a bad first guess at balancing numbers).

Recently I’ve begun to add several enhancements to the gun to make it feel more unique and explain the mechanic to an outsider rapidly. The color/shape changing beam is intended to draw attention to a change in the state of the gun (unfocused chaos to focused), changing color as the player obtains a stronger or weaker link. Additionally, there is a first attempt at distance based damage which rewards players who are good at using the gun where it’s intended to be used, however this is experimental and requires iteration and design time that may not be feasible.

Beam Gun in action, bot with no target(left) and a target lock(right)

Pre-Alpha Build Video

A Pre-Alpha build showcasing the five weapons of crystalline, an early HUD, the tutorial spawn and a far too strong bot. Expect more in depth write ups on the content soon.