Project Electric Sheep

Overview

Description

Project Electric Sheep is a conversational dream simulator developed by Charisma.ai. Tell Electric Sheep what you wish to dream about and dive into a visual interpretation, where you talk about your dream with visual conversational characters in a 3D space. The game is available on the Epic Games Store and Steam

Tools

  • Figma
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Premiere Pro
  • Unity

Process

  • UI Design
  • UX Design
  • Testing
  • Web Design
  • Development Collaboration
  • User Research
  • Social Media Marketing

My Role

As a lead UX/UI designer, I was responsible for creating the new UI for the game, ensuring that it would be visually pleasing, as well as easy to use. Furthermore, I have designed a promotional website for the game. I have also created multiple videos promoting the game for Charisma’s social media accounts.

Main Pain Points

Once I started working on this project, the first step I took was to identify the main pain points for the players and find ways to improve them.

1. Overloaded and visually boring menu

The initial main menu was overloaded with information and did not fit the visual aesthetic of the game. The buttons were just standard grey rectangles and all of the information about the game and the controls was presented to the user on the side of the screen.

2. No tutorial system

The game initially did not have any tutorial system, apart from the brief mention of the controls on the main screen. 

3. Confusing ‘bed’ UI

The first thing the player gets to do after starting the game is interact with the bed. Once interacted with, the bed would ask the player ‘What do you wish to dream about?’. This might lead the player to think that once they choose a dream, they will be in it and the environment will be styled according to the dream. For example, if dreaming about ‘Snowy Mountains’ the player would expect the dream landscape to be mountains with snow. However, this would not be the case, as the dream you chose would be the topic you are going to discuss with the NPCs in the dream, rather than a prompt that influences the design of the environment. 

The Redesign

Main Menu

While redesigning the main menu screens, I have created multiple iterations for it, until the project leader has approved the final design. For the new design, I have removed the information about the game and controls from the main screen and added 2 new buttons – About and Controls. Instead of having the buttons as plain grey rectangles, I have decided to make them into text, with a blue glow effect on hover (to match the glow on the game’s logo). 

Account Screen and Store

During the game’s developement, it became clear that the game will need to have an account page for the player, as well as a page to purchase the in-game credits. I designed the pages in the same style as the main menu and made them clean and simple to use. At the begining of the game, the player automatically logs into their account by connecting it to either Steam or Epic Games Store. Later, if they want to access their account and purchase more credits, they can simply click on their balance in the top left corner of the scren, which will take them to the account page and the store.

Tutorial System

As mentioned above, the game initially didn’t have a tutorial system, except for the mention of controls on the main screen. During the testing, I have discovered that it was a quite hard to use the controls at first and some of them were confusing and took a while to get used to. So, I proposed to add a simple tutorial system to the game that will explain to the user what they have to do and how they can interact with the game. Adding this has made a big difference to the new player experience and made functionality, such as ‘Shift Gravity’ a lot easier to understand. The tutorial system consists of small pop up messages that appear on the left side of the screen when the user, for example, approaches the bed, a building or starts a conversation with an NPC. Once that particular tutorial has been successfully completed (the pop up will fill up with colour as you perform that action), the pop up turns green and then dissapears.

New Bed Scene UI

One of the main pain points that I have identified was the confusing UI and text during the initial interaction with the Bed. The original text ‘What do you wish to dream about?’ was misleading and led to a frustrating experience for some of the players, as their expectations were not met. So, it was decided to change the text, as well as make the menu a bit simpler to use. Under the speech bubbles with the text, I have added 3 new sections – Free Dreams, My Dreams, Create New Dream. These new sections allow the players to easily filter the list of dreams, as well as quickly access the free dreams, if they do not wish to pay to create their own one. 

User testing

After the design was finalised and implemented, some user testing was conducted to get feedback on the game itself, as well as the new design. The feedback was very positive, complimenting the visual style of the design, as well as its simplicity. The players have also mentioned that they found the new tutorial system very helpful, as they were confused about some of the controls when they tried the game without the tutorial system.

Project Electrip Sheep Website

As the game was neering the realease, it was decided to create a promotional website for it. I designed the website in the same style as the game, incorporating some of the UI elements, such as the button glow and bright blue colours. The one page website includes the information about the game, the trailer, some screenshots and the links to download the game. It can be accessed via this link.

Back