Everyone knows that Fortnite is an overwhelmingly massive success. It's frequently been labelled as the and one of the Epic Games' shooter-slash-construction-based multiplayer - with its three distinct game modes (Save the World, Battle Royale, and Fortnite Creative) - has taken the world by storm. But why is that?
Besides the fact that it crashed strategically into an audience of tens of millions players and ready for the taking, Fortnite also satisfies the basic human needs for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:relatedness and socializing, appealing to that much more of a wider audience. But ther𒅌e are some more discreet, behind-the-scenes things that have undoubtedly fuelled the game's success, too.
These things are totally and inextricably tied to basic human psychology, and in the context of Fortnite have been woven into the game from a user experience (UX) perspective. - the director of user experience at Epic Games during the time of Fortnite's development between 2013 and 2017 - there was a huge amount of careful UX 🌊and psychology-related planning that went into tಌhe game.
Each and every design decision made fed directly into the idea of crafting a game that would feel downright delicious to p⭕lay, and evidently tens of millions of players would vouch for that feeling. Let's look at some of these decisions, s꧅hall we?
Reducing Your Memory Load
The HUD is designed in such a way as to reduce the overall cognitive load on the player, specifically by reducing the number of different things they have to remember at any given point. According to Hodent, the game's HUD was refined a lot by the devs in orde🌞r to get it to a satisfactory level of being informative but stil𒊎l sleek enough not to be too overwhelming.
You'll not🌌ice that small icons are included in the HUD indicating the types of ammunition needed for each weapon and the building materials you have on hand, and that icons indicating relevant buttons on your consol꧟e pop up and prompt you to press them in order to complete a given action.
Although small, these kinds of design elements mean that there are fe𒈔wer things for a player to have to remember overall. This leaves room for focus to be placed on more complex, higher-order tasks or objectives, and generally makes for a smoother, more natural (and thus more enjoyable) gameplay experience.
Signs, Feedback & Harvesting
A prominent feature in Fortnite is the act of harvesting raw materials, such as wood or stone. Seeing as it's something that crops up often (pun intended) in the game and is thus something players spend a lot of time doing, the devs decided they should tweak it so it doesn't feel too "grindy." Theꦑy introduced something pretty clever - the "weakpoint feature." Whilst harvesting, a little target pops up somewhere on the thing you're harvesting and jumps around erratically across the surface of the thing.
If you hit the target (the weakpoint) then harvesting goes quicker, providing immediate incentive for doing so. Plus, whenever a weakpoint is hit, it emits a soothing little tone that provides another boost of feedback for 👍a player that's surprisingly incentivising. So basically, instead of sitting there mashing a single button whilst chipping away at a rock for a few seconds (which can end up feeling pretty dreary), you're esse😼ntially playing a little mini-game akin to that Whac-A-Mole arcade game. Much more satisfying, much more fun.
The Importance Of Good UX
So it seems the most important thing Fortnite aims to do (and certainly does do, very well) is polish and iron out the so-called "game feel" by trimming off any excess cognitive load placed on the player. The result is a game is an outrageously satisfying and addictive user experience. The game feels buttery-smooth and inten꧋sely interactive, radiating off a hu𒁏ge amount of reward and positive feedback towards the player at any given point, and that's great because humans really love being rewarded.
,"When the UX of a game is done right, it just feels natural, it feels good to play, you don't even notice it." Without a doubt, all these t꧅iny details put in place by the game's developers work in tandem to create a game that satisfies some very basic - but important - psychological and cognitive needs that the majority of players aren't even aware of.
The astounding success of Fortnite might seem blinding to many prospective designers who feel they could only dream of having their own games reaching such lofty heights of success. That's debatable, but there is certainly a decent amount of faith one can afford to place in following in the design footsteps of Fortnite's developers. Adopting s𓂃mall but powerful design components such as these which appeal to basic psychological and cognitive needs might just transform a game from being pretty alright to absolutely🌺 mind-blowing.
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