Silent Maze

Interactive Project

DID YOU KNOW 1 IN 6 PEOPLE ARE HARD OF HEARING? There's a lack of audio cues for deaf players in the gaming world. VR has no caption standards, this means no music notes to indicate song, two or three lines of captions at once, all capitals and scrolling captions instead of pop in. With 16% of our society suffering from deafness or hearing problems, this is a large portion of gamers who aren't being thought of in the design process.

Research:

  

Target Audience

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HEARING LOSS AFFECTS AROUND 11 MILLION PEOPLE in the United Kingdom, making it the second most common disability in the country. It's well worth the time and effort to make accessible games for persons with hearing difficulties, and many other gamers will take advantage of them as well. One of the most accessible and deaf-friendly games available is The Last of Us Part II. Awareness indicators and other visual signs, as well as subtitles and vibration cues, can all be turned on.

Forest

WHAT IS OUR SOLUTION? We heard from online deaf gamers who went into great depth about how the gaming industry might become more inclusive. The horror genre, according to a large portion of the deaf community, has failed horribly to terrify their players since it relies on audio cues for effect. Anyone who has watched horror movies or played horror games knows that this genre relies heavily on audio to create suspense. Audio cues for enemies, opponents, and reward items are largely useless for deaf players. From this, we aim to create a horror game that relys on visual cues and vibrations with no audio.

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LEARNING FROM OUR RESEARCH we have noted that people who are hard of hearing benefit from better peripheral vision. VR adds a peripheral view with their headset and the two combined might be a great gaming experience — with the handheld controllers for vibration. Deaf individuals sense vibrations in the same area of the brain as hearing people do, which explains how deaf musicians sense music and how deaf people enjoy concerts and other musical activities. Providing deaf players with vibrations means they will be able to react to an attack as well as non-deaf players do with audio cues. Visual cues make both deaf and non-deaf players slow down their responses.

        

Branding

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WE WANTED TO ADD A CINEMATIC EFFECT to our VR game. This meant looking closely at movies and how they create their scenes. Color plays an important role in frightening an audience; it may be subtle at times and purposely pushed at other times. Cinematography colour palettes have a direct impact on how an audience perceives a film. Color generates atmosphere, heightens emotion, and emphasises meaning. This is why directors, cinematographers, and production designers select colour palettes in preproduction, well before filming starts. Red is typically the colour of choice throughout the horror genre, while its colour wheel complementing half, green, comes secondary.

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MIRRORING OUR GAME BRIEF we wanted to do something different than the standard go-to. Analyzing well-known films such as Alien (1979) and the Saw series, they initiate an unsettling color palette with selective venomous green hues. Although green represents health, nature, and growth, it may also represent the polar opposite. Green is a popular hue in horror films because it symbolises death and decay, a nauseating sensation, and disease. When we studied at horror logos thoroughly, we noticed a pattern of scratchy or handwritten typography that we didn't feel accurately portrayed the game play. For symbolism, we wanted to emphasise the maze feature of the design.

WITH A VISION IN MIND we checked out maze logos for inspiration. Specifically, a spherical labyrinth, such as the one shown above, that would fit perfectly within a favicon. Once a dark green tint was added, it also resembled a radar. We knew we wanted a bold typeface inside the maze, or for the letters to represent the labyrinth itself.  It was also proposed that we explore at ways to represent vibrations (such as a radar) or a nod to deaf players. Using symbolism in logo design may help your target audience understand key aspects of your brand quickly and efficiently. Shapes, colours, icons, and other symbols can be included in these symbols.

        

Social Media

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DISCOVERING INSTAGRAM BRAND STRATEGIES TO MAXIMISE OUR ONLINE PRESENCE led us to why our competitors have a strong social media presence. You need material on a variety of channels to be easily accessible on search engines. According to research, half of the 80% of adults who use the internet now use two or more social networking sites, up significantly from past years. Instagram is a visual storytelling platform, users may navigate through your profile and get a sense of who you are without having to click on a single image. Hashtags are crucial because they allow you to focus your marketing to those who are specifically interested in your product or service as a brand. On average, most businesses use seven hashtags each photo they publish. Stories enhance your reach by 20%, and that it's critical to pin (through highlight) significant information on your profile. Interactivity, such as polling stickers, makes story advertising appear more natural in the Instagram universe, rather than like an alien attempting to promote their content or sales.

Forest

AS YOU CAN SEE FROM OUR COMPETITORS, they have a selection of screenshots from the game as well as behind-the-scenes material that is only available on this platform.  Many businesses use the function "Highlights" which allows you to save old stories so that you can go back and catch up on anything you may have missed in the future. It's also divided into categories, allowing the follower to pick and choose what they want to see. Additionally, there was a full description bio at the top of the page, which included website links, the location of the game developers, and an ESRB rating for the game (preempting younger audiences). We came across a great article on how to utilise our bio . Instagram offers a variety of creative elements that may be displayed in 'explore' and linked to 'stories' or 'Reels'. Reels is a new feature that has only been available for a few years but instagram has been promoting this content over standalone posts. A following on Instagram is crucial because it has a 4% percent engagement rate per follower, which is 60 times greater than the engagement rate on Facebook, which is why having a instagram is vital.

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WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO FIND OUT is if the trend of spiliting photos to generate a single image for our profile was beneficial for branding or just bothersome for followers. We discovered a great article that went into detail about this topic, and in brief, it's a terrible marketing strategy. It's bad for engagement since you can only comment on one of the three (six or nine) posts you use to upload one image. It's inconvenient for your existing followers; although it looks wonderful for new followers who click on your page, your current followers will be confused as to why a third of your image appears in their feed. That brings me to my second point: it only looks decent every third post because it splits and falls down the following row. What should you do instead? Spreading photographs over a carousel (many images on one post) is an excellent method to create a fluid post while scrolling. Brand events, such as product premieres or behind-the-scenes footage, motivate people to take action. Instead of investing too much time and effort in building a new ad, use simple templates such as story templates for immediate engagement.

        

Advertising

https://www.solopress.com/blog/print-inspiration/the-ultimate-guide-to-posters/
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IN THIS DAY AND AGE, WHY POSTERS? Posters are acknowledged to have been the first printed marketing tool. A poster is a printed advertising that promotes an event, a product, or a service by displaying it widely. It mixes text and visuals to guarantee that it is observed by a large number of people, and it is often shown in a public setting. Posters have maintained their appeal despite the development of digital media. Their immediacy, simplicity, and the tactile sensation of ink on paper are all appealing to us. They have a sentimental appeal as well as a connection to significant cultural occasions. They are enjoyable to produce, and they look lovely displayed on a wall. We followed this fantastic piece on how to produce the perfect poster . Within this article is explains that original type of advertisment is cost-effective, part of a campaign and it generally expected. It talks about the use adding different layers: text, colours and imagery.

Forest

POSTERS ARE JUST NOT FOR PRINT Although we think of print straightaway when thinking of advertisment, it has dual-purpose and therefore allows you produce two types of advertisment in one. In our experience, we’ve seen posters used as ads or on stories throughout social media. It makes your profile more cinematic. Interestling, some studies have shown that traditional print, such as newspapers, magazines and poster advertising, are highly trusted sources, far more so than online advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) and social media. This is particularly true for older audiences. For the longest time, posters in particular have shown up in public locations, where they appear to stand out as more visible and trustworthy than other types of advertising.

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IN SUMMARY, we observe a cinematic quality in all three of the above. They've caught our attention to the posters' foregrounds with iconography, some of which features genuine gaming footage. It is common practise in advertising to avoid using game video to maximize sales and build an emotional connection with the consumer. The title is prominent and clear in comparison with the rest. A tagline and a date appear to be premeditated. In short, we want to maintain strong branding in our print advertising, which we can continue to represent in our digital advertising as well. We'd like to stay as close to authentic game footage as possible, but this will depend on how far ahead of schedule we are with promotion; this may be accomplished in phases, with footage added as the ads develop.

Branding:

  

Logos

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TO BEGIN, we sketched some preliminary concepts for the game using the title we had already picked. We considered utilising a labyrinth typeface to create a mysterious logo at first, then sketched as many different designs as possible to maximise our options. As you can see from the image above, there is a play on morse code that we enjoyed; it also had a horror aspect to it due to the history of morse code. Morse code was closely connected to the concept of vibration. The maze eye was deemed the most fascinating proposal by the team.

Forest

THEN, FIRST MOCKUPS were created in Illustrator to offer a clearer picture of which design may become the final logo. We intended to experiment with the usage of visuals, utilizing eyes for "keeping an eye out" and a shhing outline for the silent portion of the game; the majority of these mazes also resembled radars that track movement. We focused on decreasing the logos as much as possible in order to convey a powerful symbolism. We also considered how the icon might function in a favicon, utilising some of the simpler mazes. When asking for feedback the eye in the maze were again predominately on top in terms of favourites.

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DURING OUR INITIAL PITCH, we recommended one of the logos from the mockups, however feedback indicated that it was inadequate for the game genre. To our defence, we stated that we were seeking for something bold and did not want to use a scratchy script, which is most frequently used in horror, as our research revealed. Instead, we desired to produce something artistic with a great deal of significance. We returned to the drawing board to experiment with the labyrinth design from the original concepts and began producing this extremely fascinating font that resembled a maze yet allowed for clear visibility of the text. In addition, we decided to include an eye because it was a fan favourite from the start and put a quirky spin to the letter A. Then, we began creating additional letters for this typeface for usage in taglines and advertisements.

  

Brand Guidelines

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BRANDGUIDLINES ARE A VITAL TOOL for ensuring brand consistency across all channels. In the absence of standards, brands could evolve and distort over time, thereby decreasing the value and credibility of our brand. It is easier to recognise our brand if it is consistent throughout the industry and with our target audience, which is why a guide is important. In order to get things started, we provided our team with a simple and instructive brand guideline that contained all of our logos and taglines. As you can see, we have illustrated the proper colour palette for the logo while also providing the basic black and white logo for all purposes. We've chosen a certain backdrop colour that will make the green gradient stand out even more prominently. After that, we divided our logos into three categories: the primary logo, the secondary logo, and the tagline (if applicable). In our presentation, we discussed when it was appropriate to utilise primary and secondary brand logos. We have worked closely together to reduce the size of the secondary logos so that they may be comfortably contained within a favicon.

Forest

IN THE NEXT SECTION OF OUR GUIDELINES, we discussed the fonts that would be featured in the completed product. The typeface DIN Condensed is applied in this case, and it is available in three various weights to highlight different elements of the text. As you'll see, we've included the text "The quick brown fox" to enable readers to visualise what each character would look like within this typography. We have then established a colour palette that will be applied consistently throughout this brand, and we have provided the name of the hue as well as the accompanying hex code for easy accessibility. In this case, we picked hex colour codes since hex colour codes and RGB colour codes are both based on the same premise, as they both specify colours using the RGB colour mode. As we are predominantly using digital products, we did not produce a CMYK code at this time. We invested lot of effort into choosing these colours, and each one has been checked against the others for user-interface compatibility. We've selected a minimal colour palette to keep the number of colour possibilities from becoming overwhelming and confusing for our team.

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OUR TYPEFACE AND COLOUR SCHEME have been mocked up as a user-interface button to demonstrate how they are applied as well as to showcase how they compliment one another. For visual confirmation, we put a small triangle graphic on either side of the text. With this information, we were able to create a start-up screen for the game that included the logo and the ux design that we had previously created. Because of this, our team was able to follow the brandguide's style guidelines without any confusion. In addition, we illustrated how the colours might function in this situation. As a result, the team understands how the primary (or call-to-action) button will appear in the UX portion of this project. As we were the sole designer on this project, we had to extend ourselves across branding, advertising, social media, and UX design, thus this quick explanation of UX design may have a significant influence on the game designer's success in keeping to a brand.

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Billboard & Posters

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IN TERMS OF ADVERTISING, we attempted to follow as closely as possible to the research examples we collected. We placed the primary logo at the forefront of the layout and added a bold phrase above it. The colour palette was limited to three colours from our brand standards, with the "ash grey" being used instead of white to provide a great contrast while staying true to the eerie emotions something which we explored in our brand research process. We decided that the logo was the most exciting aspect of this project thus far, therefore we made it a major feature of the design. We didn't have access to game footage at this moment in the development process, so we stuck primarily to a dark tone that matched our brand image and identity. We experimented with photography, but ultimately decided that it was more effective as a stand-alone piece.

Forest

FOR OUR SECOND ADVERTISMENT we wanted to emphasise on the VR part of our game as it is a unique selling point. We can confidently claim that our virtual reality game is the first to be created without the use of audio, instead relying on vibrations to provide auditory cues. We believed it was vital to recognise and celebrate this incredible achievement. The tagline "No sound, no problem" was used as a backup one. Because it was something we had intended to include on our social media, including the phrase "just vibes," which is a play on words; good vibes is a popular term used and it plays on the vibration aspect of the game, we decided to include it. We included a person using the Occulus VR headset in the backdrop, which was put against a stunning black to transparent background.

  

Social Media

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OUR SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAGIN WAS VERY ESSENTIAL TO US. Let us talk you through our favourite aspects of this design. We wanted to develop material that looked professional and also had a theme that matched closely to our branding. We ultimatley made the choice for this more polished finish than our competitors in the market since based our design on our study and this would show to have superior results. We thought hard about how our following would see our material, interact with it and continue to value the content we generate. We place our user-experience above replicating or mimicking what our rivals we’re doing. Making sure we had the engagement in tales, like we indicated in our study, we generated stories that featured a call-of-action (set a reminder) and in this similar manner we would be able to put polls to obtain audience interaction. We kept all the symbols the same, in this example the annoucement megaphone. As you can see in our story highlights they all have an icon for their category: BTS or ‘behind the scenes, News! and Secret Clues. In our biography for our profile we chose to follow closely to our games competition, unfortuantly there wasn’t an opportunity for us to add a location at the time and our web developer had not made the website live. For our second story, you can see we have repurposed our print advertisment for digital function. 

Forest

Forest

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HERE ARE SOME CLOSE UP PEEKS OF OUR POSTS. The first thing you can see (top left) is real in-game footage of one of the levels. We have included this green triangular shape in the corner with a lightbulb icon to indicate this post will have addional information when you slide, taking inspiriation from our research on how to design engaging posts. We have also got a similar green angled corner on the opposite end to tell the user to swipe. We loved this style of post as it allows us to maintain our branding on our gameplay posts and triggers the user to engage with our post. As you can see from the next post this is what the user will see when they swipe. Our research instructed us not to utilise spilt photographs across the profile therefore we kept away from this and used carousel instead. We have our brand guidlines, the lightbulb at the top, for important information provided in this nice contrast of black and white; we tried to use white text on the black background but it wasn’t standing out as much as we liked. This type of information allows our audience to know our initial intentions by creating this type of gameplay but it’s ultimately for everyone not just a niche community. Adding a great tagline to the bottom of the post so it leaves the user with a question. The third post you see is our print advertisement utilised again for digital format, demonstrating you how cost-effective this piece is because it used across all platforms and the design allows the poster to be in a 1080 x 1080 format for instagram. The forth article is delivering information about the game, on how to survive, allowing the user to comprehend the goal in little fragments before it’s official playable. We then have these countdown postings with huge font so it’s visable to read from the profile; it’s vital for our game to have a product premiere. And finally, we have some great footage from the game UI which we felt looked excellent for some marketing -- again with a slogan we used in our poster campaign and our release date.

                          

Project Overview:

  

IN SUMMARY WR ARE INCREDIBLY HAPPY WITH THE OUTCOME of our branding, social media campaign and advertisment. It was a such a challenage for our designer, Kate, to come up with professional horror branding in an industry that prefers to use scratchy and uninspiring typography. We have successfully generated a cool aesthetic for our gaming community and fulfilled our main objective of giving hard-of-hearing and deaf gamers an opportunity to be recognised during the design process. This was a wonderful challenge to create, and the promotion mockups screens give it the wow factor it deserves. We’ve fallen in love with this game, and we hope you do too!

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