Rail Shooter (VR) - UX Design

Rail Shooter was a VR game, a love letter to the old arcade rail shooter games for example the Jurassic Park game series. It was being designed for Oculus Quest 2.

Reference for players' in-game arms

Hand-drawn game assets were provided by the client. My responsibility was to design the game-flow and level progression after discussing the vision with the client, design ScreenFlow, wireframes, and help induce some juice to make the game as enjoyable as possible while sticking to the adventure RPG category.

Part 1:-

Initially, game progression and the world layout was discussed with the client and then a rough sketch of the world was created.

Each level had a unique environment with increased enemy difficulties.

Part 2:-

The next task was to design a screen flow. Since it was a level-based VR game, the screen flow and wireframes were going to be very different from those in casual or RPG mobile games. 



The difficulty was to not follow the usual screen flows and come up with a more user friendly flow, that would be unique for VR. Hence, the number of screens was decreased so that the usability and ease didn't come at the cost of decreasing the immersive experience of VR. The more number of menus, the more it feels like a video game and takes the player out of the virtual world, something which is against the fundamental ideas of immersive-ness in RPGs.

Part 3:-

Lastly, the final design-related task was to build wireframes not only unique to VR but also to the RPG rail shooter genre. As the ScreenFlow was designed using ideas that would facilitate continuity and immersive-ness, the same things needed to be prioritized while building wireframes.
These wireframes were designed on Balsamiq due to its easy to use layout.

- Gameplay Screen

- Pause Menu

This would appear in front of the environment. The game won't take the player to a separate new screen.

- Main Menu Start Game

- Main Menu Load Game

- Main Menu Settings

- Level Completed Screen

Clicking the Main Menu button would save the game at the end of that level and move the player to the Main Menu Screen.

- Level Failed Screen

- End Game Confirmation Window

The game would automatically be saved as soon as the player clicks yes, hence, there was no need to add a 'Save Game' option or window. There could only be one game saved at a time.

It must be kept in mind that these wireframes were designed according to the requirements and considering the likeness of the client.