Minecraft Legends
Game specifications
Genre: Action strategy game
Info: Available on PC, Xbox, PS4, PS5 and Switch. Pikmin style RTS in Minecraft universe. Released in 2023
Engine: Bedrock (Minecraft), Coherent Gameface UI library
Business model: Retail, in app purchase
Genre: Action strategy game
Info: Available on PC, Xbox, PS4, PS5 and Switch. Pikmin style RTS in Minecraft universe. Released in 2023
Engine: Bedrock (Minecraft), Coherent Gameface UI library
Business model: Retail, in app purchase
From December 2021 to October 2023, I've been UX designer for Minecraft Legends.
Major tasks and responsibilities:
- Mockup and prototype large and small features, such as Lost Legends & Myths, or the Hero select screen, or design better PVP communication tools
- Advocate and design for accessibility. My predecessor in the project had started comprehensive work on accessibility which I extended further with design flow for TTS/Screen narration, better controls visualization and warnings when remapping controls, updating the layouts and implementation to better support text size increase and localization (including LTR languages, Arabic and Hebrew) and overall advocate for more customization while keeping in mind tech and budget constraints.
- Ensure cross-platform compatibility. Building on the UX established by the team, I carried further support to address TRC constraints from the different consoles, and ensure all edge cases of compatibility were addressed.
- Integration. I took on to debug visual UI issues in engine, and implement layouts with the UI engineers. Bedrock is a proprietary engine (C++), but Coherent Gameface UI framework uses web languages such as React and CSS. Overtime, I became more confident and able to tackle larger UI changes, and understand the project thoroughly, making it easy to diagnose issues and support the rest of the team.
- UX writing. Writing is not my strongest suit, but I took on to owning and reviewing all the front end strings with a UX writer at Mojang for consistency and tone, and eventually wrote the vast majority of the UI strings going forward. I took on the responsibility to ensure all UI strings are added early to our lang file for localization.
DLC content UX
Lost legend and Myth front end hub
My first assignment was to support all the DLC content. The first version of the marketplace had been designed but not yet implemented, and there was many questions to answer. How to manage and access the content? What of multiplayer dependencies?
Skins are cosmetics applied to the hero and the different animal mounts. Lost Legends are a short challenge (less than an hour of gameplay), free, which awards a cosmetic reward. They are released once a month, and can be played solo or in coop. Myths are paid mini games developed by third party, singe player only.
It took several iterations, as answers from tech and 3rd party trickled in and took shape. The high and low fidelity mocks ups were created in Figma.
My work covered front end flows (presentation, acquisition, management) and in game (objectives, victory/defeat states, and specific HUD support).
It was very interesting to draw from the already established UX patterns, but renew it for this very unique situation. As I was forging ahead, I would uncover questions for the design and programming team, helping them understand the span of the feature request.
In game UX for Lost legends
In addition to front end flows, I also worked on in game UX support for 7 Lost Legends. I worked closely with the game design team to build a fun and tight experience.
Steps:
The game designer shares a design doc of the concept and a prototype for me to test.
From there, I provide a Figma flow of moment to moment messaging from start to finish, with suggestion of HUD elements to leverage to provide objective and feedback to the player.
UI art (special icon request for example) and audio are looped in early.
Designer, and sometimes coder for special requests, work hand in hand to implement the feedback.
Group playtests allows to review clarity and fun. Further feedback and tuning time follows until the experience feels satisfying.
I really enjoyed that part of the work, for the close relationship with gameplay and the impact of game feel. I could ask genuine questions about the gameplay and intention, it felt like a healthy back and forth. Leveraging internal tech in a different way than campaign and PVP was also very satisfying!
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