There are thousands of video games across all platforms, including the web, desktop platforms, Play Store and App Store. While several of them are popular among the players, most games are just altogether ignored or played scarcely. Besides the unique game concept, the game UI design plays a critical role in the success of a game app.
No wonder experiments on improving game UI and gaming experience continue to evolve. This is why it is always apt to look closely at the leading game design trends yearly. As 2022 is going to conclude some months from now, it will be great if we look for the biggest game design trends, we have come across so far this year. Let’s begin.
AI-based Game Design
Artificial intelligence (AI), in more than one way, makes the job of the designers and developers easier to choose the right tech stack and design approaches. Where the existing game design reveals, AI can easily reveal pain points and bottlenecks for player engagement.
Artificial intelligence, by covering various facets of player engagement data and by intuitively decoding the gaming interactions, can easily show us where the game UI needs improvement and the new game UI attributes that can be added to make the gaming experience more entertaining and addictive.
By using machine learning models, game strategists can easily access various user interaction patterns and improve the graphics and interactive elements accordingly. Here AI and ML decode both the qualitative and qualitative data of the playing experience.
Animated Storytelling
For every phenomenally popular game, one common attribute is storytelling ability. The storyline accompanies befitting animation effects, making a significant design trend for the present and future. Leading game engines like Unity make things easier by using animation for vivid game storytelling. From typographic experiments to animated game characters, the game app comes to life when every visual element shapes the game UI.
In the forthcoming days, animated storytelling will likely shape the gaming experience the way it did all these years. This is because, despite the emergence of AR and VR, there is still no better alternative to player engagement than storytelling animations.
Design Generation
You must be aware of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) technologies that allow machines to speak and write text in natural language. In the design world, the generative design brought a similar concept that can revolutionize game design to a great extent. By analyzing a huge volume of design elements and considering their specific attributes, a generative design engine will be able to produce game characters and avatars per the game project requirements.
Generative game design in more than one way will revolutionize how game design is conceptualized, and design attributes are planned. The game design will be more intuitive, and designers will be able to follow market trends and player expectations more precisely than ever before.
AR & VR for Game Design
Just as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have already penetrated every aspect of the digital landscape, these two technologies are likely always to shape game design. AR and VR bring a truly immersive gaming experience for the game players.
Since Pokémon Go made AR gaming famous by blurring the division between the digital gaming environment and the real-world atmosphere, countless games have embraced AR to deliver a unique game experience. Virtual Reality, or VR, on the other hand, has always been a coveted technology for the immersive on-screen experience. The future of game design and development seems inseparable from the evolving AR and VR implementation.
The Popularity of Bold Material Design
Suddenly the subtle layout with smooth overlapping of color and design elements has become outdated. Now is the time when the boldness of the Material Design principle has become popular even for game app design.
The use of string grids, clearly defined use of color blocks, and reduced cognitive load are some of the core Material Design principles that stood out for the game world.
“Play as you Earn” Games
Since the time Blockchain-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) penetrated the gaming industry, we have seen the rise of “Play as you Earn” game apps. Players can create, buy and possess unique game characters and game-art materials and earn from them while still being just players.
The focus on NFT-based game character creations and using them as key monetization channels for attracting players is likely to grow as a trend. NFT games have opened up a new win-win gaming world where entrepreneurial possibilities are within reach of casual game players. In the coming years, more game titles will follow this trend.
Less Code for Game Development
The future of game development is less dependent on coding expertise and skills. The continuous prosperity and growth of both low-code and no-code platforms for game development is a testament to the fast-evolving future of gaming. With no code, even non-professionals can design and develop games by putting various elements like Lego blocks.
In the way graphic editor suites are enabling common people to shape websites and apps, the future of game design can very well be in the hands of non-professional designers, at least partially. When these platforms are further coupled with AI tools, a whole array of possibilities will open up for the future of game design and development.
The future of no-code game design will move ahead of simple templating engines. There will be more creative possibilities with the option of buying and possessing game characters through NFT-based monetization methods. Earn-to-play games, no-code game development, and advanced templating engines will take the game design and development to a new level.
Summing It Up
From the above elucidation, it is clear that the future of game UI design is inseparable from the evolving technology trends. In the future of game design, meeting technologies with creative design excellence will happen more frequently and meaningfully.
