Game Designer
Space Taxi HUD Prototype
Using Familiar Aesthetics to Create a Better HUD
For this project I set out to create a simple, condensed HUD for a driving game in the mode of crazy taxi but set in space. Conceptually the vehicles would be like those from The Fifth Element combined with the styles of the Wipeout series. Though I love Wipeout, the HUD suffers from an issue present in most racing games: there is simply to much critical information scattered around the edge of the screen. With this in mind I set out to consolidate the essentials onto the vehicle to keep the player focused on their path rather than searching the edge of the screen for additional info.
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Using the idea of a taxi style game, I wanted a targeting system reminiscent of the vector graphics used on board vehicles in Star Wars and The Fifth Element.
Wireframing
Using these references, I wireframed the targeting and speed HUD visualizations. These were used to guide my process in developing the prototype.
Speed indicator
Targeting reticle
Realizing the Idea
To quickly establish the speed indicator, I began by using a racing stripe rather than a full mesh. This tells the player whether they've reached maximum speed without providing any unnecessary data. The angled approach of the reticle provides a unique spin on the vector graphics used in the reference images.
