Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 13 with JoCat - Advance Wars, Chicory, Astroneer and More ~ Design Doc 

Go to curiositystream.thld.co/DESIGNDOC and use code DESIGNDOC to save 25% off today, that’s only $14.99 a year!

thanks for having me on! now time to get back to doing lots of hard work that is very demanding and requires skill and experience

I feel like that Digimon system has some good potential. Checking what someone is thinking and seeing the *_entire screen_* filled with "escape" does a good job selling the terror that character is feeling. Like getting the hell out of there is the only thing they can think about right now.

Good stuff as always. One thing you mentioned early on is that Bad Design can appear in good games and Good Design can appear in bad games but i feel like we haven't seen much of the latter.

Just one thing to point out is that in The Culling usually you can see the scoreboard indoors as well. Many buildings have television screens with the scoreboard that you can break if you want to. Not to say I wouldn't prefer being able to see it whenever I press tab for example, but it does help the feeling that this is some sort of hunger games where people are filming and watching the contestants

15:45 congratulations, Diggy Man, you're the first game whose menus have given me a panic attack

17:35 Grit has a hidden gun, and his specialty is indirect units, which fire from out of visible range. He's also pretty chill, because artillery units tend to be pretty far from the actual action. And revolvers evoke cowboys and precision shooting, something arty needs. And in Dual Strike, he's just a straight-up cowboy.

The diggimon example could've worked if they exercised moderation. Reserve the screen filling for very high emotion scenes and spawn a few copies otherwise.

I felt attacked when those Digimon menus filled the screen, reminded me of getting a BSOD.

I noticed that similar-looking units in Advanced Wars have their bobbing animations inverted from each other (one is in the up pose while the other in its down pose). I bet this also plays a big part in making the sprites easy to read

When I saw featuring Jo Cat I was expecting the episode to be focused on the UI of character creation. But ah well. While I agree that Persona 5's UI looks a lot better than Ephemeral Fantasia, I'm not sure that's the fairest comparison? Everything needed to be so much... Larger... to be legible in the days before HD (To the point that some of us wound up getting a HD television specifically due to the change in size of text on 360 and PS3 games compared to OXB and PS2 ones, at some point devs just started assuming everyone had a HDTV and, prior to any dev caring at all about accessibility, locked into fonts that were illegible an SD television with no way to adjust), meaning there was a lot smaller a percentage of screen space you'd have available for blank space. Now, you absolutely could do designs that made good use of white space back then - While less stylish than P5's UI, PS1 era Final Fantasy games felt pretty organized to me, and old school pokemon was able to use white space surprisingly well considering it had a 160x144 screen available (Is it perfect? Nah - It's telling that basically the only major change to UX for the battle UI to make use of the GBA's 240x160 screen was 'add more white space' - But considering all the information it needs to present on a 160x144 screen resolution it's surprisingly decluttered)... I'm just not sure comparing to a game made for HD systems is the best comparison there.

Splatoon has some diegetic UI. In humanoid form, the ink tank on your back shows your in level, and while it uses the classic shooter round-the-edges-of-the-screen health display, it also shows the ink on your character. One or two splatters, you're probably be fine. If your inkling is covered in the enemy's ink, you should probably be worried. The health display works pretty well for a hectic team shooter, but the ink level can take some getting used to.

Advance wars has so much attention to detail, i played this game for years and only last month that i noticed that the battle animations background is based on the tiles around the tiles in which both units are fighting, for example: city vs plains near ocean (18:57), Plains near city vs plains near ocean (19:03), plain near road vs road near plain (19:12)... Such good attention to details.

That ffxiv HUD was both hilarious and triggering. xD

Did... did JoCat mod his copy of _Astroneer_ to give his character cat ears? Also, that screen full of "Escape"s is just begging to be turned into a me_irl meme.

Hearing "Beyond the wall", my favourite FFXIV song, at the start of the first Bad Design section, was such a welcome surprise that my jaw literally dropped. I'm so happy, thank you ♥

Oh wow that was unsettling looking into your digimons mind and all you see is “GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT”

Remember kids: A healthy amount of Jocat is always necessary for good design. Also for life in general.

Spamton: Me: Ready to be a [[Good Design]]?!

One thing I noticed about the Digimon example: Not only do the different hexagons have different colors, but some of the same color also contain different text, making it really hard to see at a glance which action your Digimon wants to do. If I were to redesign the UI, I would probably do it like this: Have the four hexagons for Action, Guard, Escape and Flee change size relative to each other to indicate which of the options your Digimon wants to take. Then, when you go to the corresponding sub menu, do the same for the specific options. It leads to an easy mental connection of Bigger Icon = More preferred option

Much like how horror has to insert disempowerment into a medium where so much of their audience wants the opposite, computer-themed games like .HACK or Digimon have the unenviable task of trying to express "glitchy" in a way that feels right - that is, "right for a glitch" - without ruining the player experience. There are many ways of doing it, but most inconvenience the player in ways large or small and a game that strikes the balance in a way that's appreciated by even a majority of the player base is rare.

I agree with most of the bad design stuff, however, the scoreboard in the sky is FANTASTIC. For one, hat place you're ranking is not important to your gameplay (hence the scores are usually hidden on an overlay tab you activate when you got nothing better to do). And secondly, the Hunger Games Style makes the Ranking literally tower over you, enhancing the atmosphere instead of pulling you out of the game!

Hey, that's my map in the background at 20:49! It's a custom designed map that Chucklefish later added into the default maps section, and also quick play map pool.

I play as ROB all the time and I had *no idea* that there was a fuel gauge on his side! A lot of the small visual tells in that game are just too subtle amongst the many things vying for your attention.

OMG! I remember playing Digimon World Data Squad once but I could never remember the name! I've almost forgot about it. I'm so glad you brought it up. I may need to play it again.

Thank you so much for talking about Astroneer Jocat! That game needs more love for it's amazingly diegetic UI. I would have liked to hear you talk about how the sound design works with the diegetic UI to make it more intuitive. For example, when you slot something into a space it can fit not only does the animation snap into place but you get a sound like a lego brick clicking into place. When you start sucking up terrain that is harder than dirt the sound of the drill changes.

When I recognised the DIgimon Cyber Sleuth soundtrack in the video I didn't expect the curveball of you being one of like 3 people who has played Digimon World Data Squad.

15:38 - What? I'm sure it's just an ordinary menu inter-- (15:45) _Oh my Goodness!_ *...SQUIDWARD!!*

THANK YOU FOR COVERING WARGROOVE OH MY GOD THAT GAME IS AMAZINGLY UNDERRATED

I lost it at the Digimon Data Squad entry. Something about the screen flooded with messages is so funny to me.

I'm always glad whenever anyone mentions Ephemeral Fantasia, no matter the reason. Despite all the game's faults, it definitely has its charms.

So happy to see Chicory. Hoping to have a Switch version one day. 😁

Thank you for making the video extra fun to watch, without making it look amateurish or foolish. 👍

Diegetic UI: Deus Ex: Human Revolution/Mankind Divided. Adam Jensen was augmented after a surprise attack on the company he provides security for, and that gave him a UI - heck, at the start of both games it's on the fritz and he needs to go get it/him fixed, and (if you don't get the EMP-proof aug) electric surges will disrupt the UI too, temporarily.

That spritework and setting has captured me. Wargroove is officially wishlisted.

12:34 I recognize that background theme since I spent HOURS just planning how to evolve my Digimon

I will always approve of discussion on why WarGroove is so awesome. That game *oozes* with charm.

I'm gonna chuck my hat into the ring and use the points made on Advance Wars to gush about Command and Conquer for a second. Turns out, the same strengths of unit design in turn-based strategy work just as well in real-time strategy as well. In C&C's case, you're having to react to changes on the battlefield in an instant, rather than the benefit of being able to make a move and go off your own intel, so it becomes EXTREMELY important to know exactly what you're seeing, in that very instant. You know that silhouette thing people (rightfully) bring up when discussing TF2? How you can always tell exactly what class you're up against in an instant? That's at play here as well. That long, pill-shaped lookin' thing on wheels? That's a _Harvester_, go ahead and attack it to cripple your enemy's economy. A large, silver rectangle, sitting in the middle of a field? That's a _SAM Site_, keep your aircraft far away. You see a huge tank with a two barrels? _Mammoth Tank_, get your defenses ready. A large box moving your way? _APC_, don't let it in. Tall, lanky lookin' thing in front of that base? _Obelisk of Light_, and it's gonna thin your force hard if it doesn't completely annihilate it. The infantry are a bit harder to discern from shape, considering that it was originally a DOS title that only had do many pixels to go around, and in terms of sprites were roughly twice as large as a Lemming. It's not helped much by their weapons being roughly as pixel tall. That said, you still have a rough idea of at least who you're looking at. Engineers wear bright yellow hats, so you'll never mistake them for anyone since else, and Rocket Soldiers move abysmally slow compared to everyone else, so you'll still know who's who when a large group of infantry are rushing at you. It's half the reason I prefer C&C compared to other RTS games. The strength of the unit design makes it extremely easy come up with a both a strategy and a response if something comes up, in comparison to other titles where mechanically they might be interesting, but in practice I zone out way too hard because I have to take longer to get information to respond properly. tl;dr C&C has wonderful uses of silhouette language, and it makes it super approachable for a game based on instant tactics

The digimon UI looks like it has a nice concept. It worked well to sell what the digimon are thinking (neat idea I must say) but the execution ended up hindering the screen. I think a way to keep the base concept without changing the mechanic is to switch "number" to "size". Meaning that a preferable option is larger than the less preferable option for that digimon. The size of the button can be limited to avoid oversized or very tiny button. The UI also need to changed. Since the button is now resizable, thus it can't be tiled. It need to be changed into something that works with resizable concept.

This was one of the most charming collabs I've seen in a long time! 😂

My concern with Wargroove is... did they pay their artists and developers this time?

For the Digimon game. Other problem with the UI is that with this method you can completely loose the control of your digimon. Not only there´s too much crap on the screen, sometimes you are not going to have a command you want to use on the screen, unless you use a master command item. (Honestly i never used the geoGreySword attack command because it never appear on the screen) I don´t think the UI is good, if they wanted to give the digimon the chance to use what they want, they should´ve let the player use the center option of type of command (Action, Guard, Escape) as the "let the digimon use the command they want" (Also the frienship system is too obscure, and bad because of the UI).

The Design Doc lore grows more complicated

Glad to see Astroneer getting the recognition it deserves.

Once again another great video! I love these so much. One remark! Advance wars infantry also have unique designs bases on different factions!

I thought the ending was going to lead to Jo shooting your computer like in the Virus episode of Homestar Runner

Seeing De Blob merely alluded to made my day!

Just finished binging this series and wow what great one! Can't wait to see what other games you'll cover. It would be neat to see your thoughts on the design of gaming console menus and UI.

Had to pause the Chicory bit so I could buy the game. It's rare that I'm sold on a game _that_ quickly!

I almost thought it was a missed oppurtinity to not have a spamton joke in the 'bad design' layout, but glad that it somehow did. Great video as always

God, yes, I love that you finally gave Wargroove a shout. It has a tiny bit of menu clunk bit it's so stylish and visually communicative.

Another good example of non-busy UI in the vein of Persona 5 (in case you'd like to use another example) would be Super Mario RPG. Similarly to Persona 5, all of the actions are laid out around the character, and are even mapped to/represented by the buttons on your controller! I always thought that concept was way ahead of its time, and you don't see it in games often.

Not fair, highlighting the amazing work on wargroove is worth a like on its own ^^

I don't know if you talked about it yet, but my favourite menu design must be The binding of Isaac one, both flash and rebirth, in this game, you play as a child that believes he is the biggest sinner in the world and draws pictures to put them at his wall. So what is the title screen+character selection screen? Isaacs pictures on his wall (you can especially see that in rebirth manipulating your window size), all the pop ups are also scraps of papers, new unlockables (sometimes with art in children drawing style), settings and what not

Never expected this cross over!

8:01 - A red marker on the edge of the screen indicating from what direction you've taken damage is useful information, but when the whole edge of the screen gets a red aura, or you get random blood smears, that's unrealistic and not at all helpful. Besides, if you've been hit in the leg, why would your vision go red? This would make more sense specifically for head damage, but even then, as someone who has had the misfortune of experiencing blunt force trauma to the head, let me tell you that there was no red aura, and losing visibility on your periphery is the least of your concerns. In my particular experience, my vision went quite blurry, briefly darkened, and became clear again quite slowly, more like when you're hit with flash grenades in these games. ...But I'm digressing into the visual effect. As far as diagetic UI goes, the red aura and smears and not helpful unless they give the player that directional input. I forget which game it was that I was playing, but I once played something where the screen became slightly blurred and more desaturated the lower your health got. When you were near death, the screen was nearly greyscale, and I believe the sound was muffled as well. May have also been a subtle black vignette around the screen. It's been a long time since I played, but I have a gut feeling it was Red Dead Redemption. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The fact that this collab exists is like Christmas come early ❤️

the colab i never knew i needed

You know the REAL brilliance about Grit from Advance Wars though? In the military, G.R.I.T. is the acronym used to remember what order to give fire control orders: G for group (who will fire) R for range, I for indication (as in, how the target is identified, via tracer or compass direction or visual description, etc), and T for type of fire.

I really dont see a problem with Digimon's UI, it's cool and it's not like it's covering anything up. (well technically other information could be put there but still)

I hope we get to see de Blob in this series, the little clips of it in the video really make me wish that more people knew about it

Jocat is a realy good choice for a host of a show about design. I could listen to him just rambling about it for hours. But I would disagre on the culling: I am prity sure you are ment to have to walk a bit to get a clear look at it. If you stalk a player you can even tell how expirienct he is at the game just by looking at how he interacts with the leaderboard (e.g. only looking at it when you don´t have oder things to do)

Ooh off to check out war groove 😄

oh my god this bad design animation made me laugh out loud at how absurd it is edit: "dollarydoos" "scamarino" and the use of lorem ipsum is just \*chef's kiss\*

Good video, I was missing this so much

Daaaaaaaamn how I’m missing this series 😢

I have to disagree on wargroove, i find hard to tell which unit is which on the map, especially with the amount of footsoldiers which look way to close to each other

I love this entire channel

That was a fantastic video! Thanks

Spyro on the PS1 showing the life bar through Sparx

All this talk about Diagetic design and I'm surprised you've not brought up the Metro series.

I appreciate all the FFXIV music in the background.

one hell of a crossover

Astroneer is really cool and so chill!

we love advance wars dont we

Honestly, given that was the first time I'd ever seen the Digimon game, I actually don't hate that flooded screen of possible moves. I saw it as looking into the mind of your character and seeing what was at the forefront of their minds. Conceptually sound, grabs your attention, easy to tell at a glance what they want. The only criticism I have is that Escape and Support options in the middle should not be covering up the HP tile in the center when highlighted.

21:39 Wow, Progress Quest cameo

This is verry late, but i wanna see your take on the absolute trip that is cruelty squad's ui (not that the game itself isnt a cluster trip itself)

I nearly spat my drink at the Digimon "menu".

I think the scoreboard in the calling is genius. It forces campers to stop camping if they want to check if their camping strategy is working fine.

Woahhh i started watching design doc for ttrpg inspo the jocat crossover is wild

Can't wait for the Advance Wars remake !

The return

Since you brought up Advance Wars, I should cite about Game Boy Wars 3 for the Game Boy Color. While GBC limitations and such has it not have CO characters, GBW3 does still have the practice of unit types having unique iconography, no small feat with 51 unit types in total, plenty of which are promoted ones. It helps that this applies even when only the top half shows, a good thing for my HP display patch included with the various other patches I've done for the game including a basically full-on translation patch. The gameplay also has TLC design points such as the Transfer Command (basically the replacement for the Join Command in GBW3) not being possible with big planes or boats due to their HP actually representing their durability instead of any headcounts, or the Lite Attacker being treated as a helicopter for resupply because it's a VTOL. You might want to take a look at it.

I forgot about the sponsor at the start of the video for a moment and thought the ending was gonna lead into a VPN ad.

I was today years old when I learned ROB has a fuel meter

I hope this comment is read: I would love to see a design doc about different weapon crafting system/weapon progression systems. I was in love with the one from Dark Cloud 2/Dark Chronicle, and I haven't encountered one since. I think your take on it would be immensely fun to watch.

Adding Chicori to my playlist

The digimon tiles should have just popped up from the center layer outwards and then also pop out in that same manner. That would create a sort of wave effect like a wave of emotions. You wouldn't be able to read all it says ofcourse when it's only on screen for 1 or 2 seconds. But it would function as a sort of hint system. If you enter a fight and the wave before your first turn is all blue run tiles you know you got into a fight you might not be able to handle yet.

Holy chickens! I've never heard anyone mention Ephemeral Fantasia! What a mess it was.

@8:14-.-Based.

I can't believe design doc has lore now

OK, it was hilarious to see soft spoken JoCat suddenly snap into JoCrap mode as soon as he jumped into FF14. XD

One of my biggest gripes with tons of games are the cluttered nature of their UI. Something like Spider-Man doesn’t feel like it has enough space.

Playing both Knights of the Old Republic games on Switch was unteresting since while 2 was definitely the better of the two mechanically, I feel 1 had a better UI design. It's way easier to see which option you're selecting during level ups/character creation in 1 since there's a yellow outline around the option you're selecting that contrasts the blue/black background. Meanwhile, 2 has the text/boarder fade lightly in and out, making it harder to tell what you're selecting when scrolling through feat options. Frequently I have to look at the right side where the description is to tell what it is I'm selecting.

"But who would do its own Advanced Wars?" *Nervously looking at Fire Emblem* Also... "adding WarGroove to the cart"

Could you consider adding the name of some of the games you flash up on the screen between main examples? I've been on an archive binge, and sometimes I'll see a game show up for a couple seconds that looks really interesting. However, with nothing to go on except a single scene or two, I have no way of finding it. Anything would be appreciated; a list of games used for small clips under the main list, a little title in the corner or something, or even just the name in the captions would be very helpful.

I swear, all the best videos are uploaded at 3:03 in the morning. HAHHH

Darn you!!! I really didn't needed to be sold into buying a couple more games! Oh well, guess I'll play them now.

Chicory seems pretty interesting, might give it a shot some time.