Stifled - Minimalist UI

Why Minimalist?

We decided that the UI needs to be as simple as possible due to the distinctive black-white style and the fact that the genre of the game is horror.

There are 3 main UI elements:

1. Pulse Indicator - Show the current pulse status

2. Noise Meter - Show how much noise is near the player

3. Interact Indicator - Show the status of the interaction

Pulse indicator

Player can generate echo via the microphone or by pressing the ''Space" key. To prevent spamming of the "Space" key, I designed a system where player has to hold down to charge up the generation of echo.

There are 3 levels of charging:

1. Hold for <0.5s, small radius pulse

2. Hold for at least 0.5s, medium radius pulse

3. Hold for 1s, large radius pulse

Noise Meter

To aid the player in understanding that he/she can be lit up by environmental sound, we added a Noise Meter to indicate how noisy is the area near the player. For example, when standing near the waterfall, the Noise Meter will be showing constantly.

Interact Indicator

Player can interact with various items found in the levels. A default white dot is placed in the center of the screen to help the player with interaction.

A hand icon will appear to indicate that the item can be interacted. If the item is pick-able, it will change to a grasped hand icon when picked up. The grasped hand icon is to remind the player that he is holding onto an item as you do not want to accidentally toss the item when an enemy is near you.

Certain items are non pick-able but can be viewed when interacted.

A handwritten letter with Page Number and Next/Previous buttons

A 3D item can be rotated and examined

Text Overlay can be enabled to aid the player in reading and for translation

Damage System

Player does has a regenerative health system and can be damaged by noise made by enemies. But there is no health bar as we felt that it is too intrusive. The screen will fade to red as the player's health drops.

Additional glitch effects will appear to indicate that the player is taking damage. The higher the intensity of the glitch, the higher the damage taken.