Ghost of Yotei is the latest game from SuckerPunch Productions' samurai anthology series. A feature that's been expanded on is the filter modes inspired by cinematic styles of famed Japanese directors, bringing gamewide changes to both audio and visual features.
This case study takes a look at these game modes, evaluates their usability, and suggests improvements to enhance player experience
CLIENT: PERSONAL PROJECT
ROLE: GAME, VISUAL DESIGNER
TEAM: SOLO CONTRIBUTOR
TIMELINE: 1 WEEK
Problem Statement
Ghost of Yotei's game filters (Kurosawa, Miike, and Watanabe modes) each either change, hinder, or offer nothing to game usability and/or gameplay experience
NOTE: Miike Mode recreates the excessive grime and gore effects present in Takashi Miike's films. The impact on game usability is negligible if not non-existent, SO IT WILL NOT BE FOCUSED ON.
Goals & Objectives
- Evaluate the usability of each game mode
- redesign the game mode to improve usability beyond its current state if needed
Kurosawa Mode
Kurosawa Mode recreated Akira Kurosawa's cinematic black & white style with lower quality audio. The main problem is that it desaturates the game's UI, making specific tasks difficult.
Creating a method to negate the adversity of the general accessibility of gameplay when the mode is active will increase playability.
Redesign Solution
- Color Isolation of a specific in-game world elements
- Keep filter overlay BELOW HUD UI and deactivate in pause menu
Implementation Challenges
Challenges would, of course, be managing post-processing effects budgets and the perceived "lack of faithfulness" to Akira Kurosawa's style. But my argument is that style shouldn't give way to accessibility. In cases like this, I'd rather keep to the "spirit" of the style than adhere to it at a larger detriment.
Watanabe Mode
Watanabe Mode takes inspiration from Shinichiro Watanabe's style of music selections against an atypical story setting by changing the ambient music to lo-fi hip hop music during gameplay exploration. It has no visual effects and a lack of diversity in its tracks.
Making visual and audio enhancement and broadening its use CASES may help the model address its lack of LONG-TERM USABILITY
Redesign Solution
- Put the Game into a 4:3 Ratio LetterBox and reposition HUD elements
- Overlay Game with a visual filter (film grain, scanlines) to mimic a CRT Monitor
- Audio quality is put through a filter to reduce fidelity
- More VARIETY of lo-fi hip hop tracks played in a VARIETY of situations outside of horseback traversal
General On-Foot Gameplay
Combat Gameplay
Focused Gameplay
Cinematics
Implementation Challenges
Challenges would include the time it would take to produce a separate OST to fill out the variety of situations. Because Kurosawa Mode uses both visual and audio filters, I don't foresee implementation issues there.
