Bait Treasure Hunters - Quests UX/UI
Client
Bait! Treasure Hunter Update - Quests
Year
2022
X marks the spot
I worked on the recent Bait! updates and one of the cool parts was to design how players would be able to do quests!
The Brief
Quests are exclusive to Tinyverse meanwhile missions are in Bait!. Quests don’t require you to go to Bait! or to fish
Rewards are only currency as of now
Feats (achievements) are tied to quests but not are different things.
There are different types of quests, each with different approximate length, between a day to a week to several weeks, some quests are timed meanwhile some aren’t
Quests replace each other since they unlock each other
After talking with the game design lead - Tom Hall, we got the main loop for quests:
You get the quests through talking to Jim Bob
Text appears with title and description
Disappears towards the wrist menu
Now the quest can be found in the Wrist Menu
Completing the quest requires talking to Jim Bob ( you don’t claim reward in the wrist menu)
Quests disappear in the Menu once they are done (and is not kept track of anywhere)
For context I had already designed the wrist menu prior to this.
and the type of quests were as follows:
Dailies | Super Scavenger | Lost and Found Type | Weekly Questline Structures |
|---|---|---|---|
These appear as a pop when you start your first Daily Tinyverse session, to remind you of what to do “Today”. | Finding specific items (ex. “Find 10 Sea Shells by the Sea shore 1/10”) ALWAYS SINGLE OBJECT | Fine Finder (find a list of 4 items (4max)) | The goal is about 30-45 minutes of things to do a week, these quests have a storyline and are about finding/collecting stuff |
and they would have difficulties:
Simple | Medium | Hard |
|---|---|---|
Find item in specific place | Find item SOMEWHERE Find X items in specific area | Find X items SOMEWHERE |
so after all these, I sorted it into the information that I need to convey:
Info always shown | Info sometimes shown |
|---|---|
Quest Title | Quest Icon (Example: talk to Jim Bob has Jim Bob’s picture) |
Quest Description/instructions | Steps (i.e (3/4)) |
Reward | Time Left (if the quest has a time limit) |
How do I acquire a quest?
When the player has finished all the tutorials in Caster’s Cove, a message appears in Floating Text.
Note: This is standard tutorial / messaging in Bait!
We had originally thought of just telling them where to go, but this is VR and it's a shipwreck themed update so why not look for the old classic note in a bottle.
Once the player locates the Message in a Bottle, they can pick it up.
The interaction with this object is like every object in Tinyverse Bait!, by either pointing and pressing trigger when close or with grip buttons.
and with VR, I usually visualize everything also from the players' perspective since it's easier to convey
Now not all players like the point and click method, some like to physically grip things so we also have to show this!
Once picked up, then the player gets a note!
We love realism so that it's more immersive but some players might not be able to read it all so we provide a text beside it.
and in the world:
Now shipwreck shore is a new place so we need a way to show a new location is added to our boat launcher.
This tied into the onboarding that shipwreck shore is a multiplayer location so when they reach the island they would get a message:
The quest tab is now available for the player in the hand menu but we need to instruct them to open their wrist menu to check.
Insert our in-world tutorial pieces that are dotted near the docks.
This is subsequently paired with haptic feedback, sound, and glow on the left wrist.
Once the player open up their wrist menu, they see a new tab - quests. It says new on it as well as maybe another visual effect like glowing.
Upon selecting the Quest Tab, players are greeted with their new Quest Tab and their first quest.
This quest is to talk to Jim Bob.
Now quests come in various types so we have to spec these and make sure we have localization limits set for them.
The First Quest
After viewing their Quest tab for the first time, player then goes back to the Old Boot to find the said sign. Once they are at the sign, they will click on it with trigger, which makes Jim Bob open up a dialogue saying “Oh, I can sure use some help, thank ye!”
Jim Bob then goes on to explain the first quest, which the player has the options to either accept or dismiss. Selecting the second option will not get rid of the quest, but rather stay there and be available whenever the player clicks on the sign again.
If the player chooses “Let’s Go” they will accept the quest and can start. This is how a typical quest is acquired from here on. Every time a quest is acquired, the wrist menu will vibrate and have a visual indicator.
And to update the quests wireframes based on the explorations earlier for the quest cells.
Player then goes back to turn the quest in to Jim Bob by talking to him, they can either click the sign or talk to Jom Bob who will have an indicator he has something to say above his head. Talking to him will result in the dialogue where he gives you the reward and/or the next quest if any.
Completing a Quest
When the player goes back to their wrist menu after finishing a quest or if the quest is updated, the quests will visibly disappear or update.
Nice Now What?
We had a timeline that actually wouldn't allow us to do the entire journey as seen above so we had to trim parts down. We like the hand menu parts and UI for tracking but the bottle and traveling to find things etc was a bit too much so simplification time!
Straight into it
We decided that we'll have a sign in Jim Bob's bar that players can opt in when they see it.
Clicking the help wanted sign will show a popup explaining the player to go check their first quest in the wrist menu!
Otherwise the wrist menu onboarding, UI stays the same! Saved us implementation time and encouraged exploration of the starting bit of the island.
but there was something new to add…
Multiplayer Quests
The nature of this whole area is to enjoy with other players, so we wanted to allow players to go with friends and then help each other with quests! Yes this made my work harder 🥲 but alas, we do what we must!
In the group launcher feature, a host can select a quest that others can help them progress in. When all players are in the instance, they have a shared quest widget and a shared quest tab. All players who have the quest can share progress with the host, the player with the highest progress is the sync point for all players.
and due to connection issues the host might not even have reached the instance yet so we need to let everyone else that they must wait a little more!
Since multiplayer is all about communicating and players might not have voice enabled, then we must place it in world for them all to see! We chose the dock players spawn into and pretty big so then there's (hopefully) no missing it. It's basically the hand menu minus the tabs.
We said we'd try to also then update the tracker on the wrist for better ways to communicate in progress and completion so players don't have to open up the menu all the time!
I really love working with these world-hubs in Bait! and other games like Blaston. Thinking in 3D and how to communicate smartly and immersively is the best part of VR UX
Scope of Work
