Last July, I was in the midst of reading a book called The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. I had first encountered it while at university, in relation to user engagement. When taking one of my regular trips last summer to the five-floor Waterstones in Euston, which also happens to be Europe’s largest new and second-hand bookshop, I found the aforementioned book tucked away in the basement corner labelled Design.
Norman discusses a topic that I would, in turn, like to discuss here. While I would love to speak about several aspects of his work, I am going to limit myself to focusing on signifiers, as they were the greatest inspiration for why I began making the game you see on this page. A signifier is a perceivable element that indicates potential actions upon an object. A physical example would be how a flat metal panel on a door signifies that the user can push the door open, with the panel also signifying where to push. As for a virtual example, Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Siege displays the icon of a spacebar coupled with the word “Vault” when you approach a waist-high object, signifying the potential action of vaulting the obstacle and how to do so. To challenge my understanding of signifiers, I gave myself the creative constraint of developing a game that indicated potential user action primarily through the colour scheme.
A screenshot from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege, showing the "Vault" signifier highlighted in a blue box.
The game I have been developing, Reboot, challenges the player to design the level themselves before they attempt to overcome enemies. They must manipulate objects in the world to give themselves the advantage and leave their opponents vulnerable. After editing the environment, conflict ensues, and the player wins when they are the only one left. I wanted to utilise Norman’s work on signifiers to design a visual language that distinguished objects the player could move from objects they could not. Taking inspiration from Superhot, I felt that a limited colour palette of black, white and red would be suitable. Red for enemies was effective, given how red is synonymous with danger, but it was the decision between what objects should be black and what should be white that led to much deliberation.
Early gameplay of Reboot, movable objects are white and immovable objects are black.
I began by casting player-movable objects in white and immovable objects, which shall henceforth be referred to as obstacles, in black. Obstacles were black to mirror the convention where an unlockable character in a game is still “locked”. The player cannot act upon the character, with the blacked-out icon or character model signifying so, just like they cannot act upon the obstacles in Reboot. The main issue with the colour scheme was the fact that movable objects and the static environment were the same colour, making it hard to discern what the player had agency over. I liked the way the white environment interacted with the light, but it didn’t warrant getting confused between what the player could manipulate and what was mere environmental decoration. It was vital to change something.
An early prototype, where objects the player could move were white and obstacles were black.
Keeping the environment white, but changing movable objects to black, created a starker contrast, strengthening the visual language of the game. I subsequently coloured obstacles white to complement the environment. To ascertain whether the change was effective, I ran a squint test. Simply put, do objects signal their behaviour if the player were to squint? While squint tests are usually used to highlight what elements the user will notice first in an image, I find them useful to understand how easily identifiable aspects of games are when distorted.
In preparation for the squint test, I took screenshots of the levels and blurred them, allowing me to compare them side by side. When looking at my original idea for the colour scheme, where movable objects are white, it is a struggle to distinguish manipulable object from environment. When white movable objects are close to the white walls, one struggles with understanding what they can manipulate and what is merely an extension of the level's periphery. By making movable objects black, contrasting the pale environment, the player is then able to identify what they have agency over almost immediately. Players can then focus their cognitive load on how to adjust the level to their advantage.
The environment when movable objects are white. It can be hard to differentiate movable objects from the walls and floor of the level.
The environment when movable objects are black. Notice how easy it is to recognise the objects you have agency over due to their contrast with the environment.
In the spirit of experimentation, I also tried making the environment black and movable objects white. While I love the mood it brings to the game, it is not the kind of mood I want to instil. The levels should feel like you are in a computer simulation, with the “blank canvas” impression of a white environment reinforcing the idea of a player-alterable landscape.
While the black environment gives a strong atmosphere to the level, it is not cohesive with the intended player experience.
With a white environment and black movable objects, I have found that the current colour scheme enables the player to quickly understand each level’s layout. Additionally, the pinkish-red enemies pop out against the monochrome and are thus easily identifiable. Going forward, I will have to consider how I want other mechanics to be clear to the player. With ideas of temporary abilities the player can place and utilise in each level, such as invincibility, how will the colour scheme concisely illustrate items to the player? If my work so far is anything to go by, I may have to start by paging through Norman’s work another time.
A video of Reboot's current gameplay, with the updated colour scheme.