Client
Demeo - Heroes Hangout Menu
Back to the 80s
If you're not familiar with Demeo, it's a fantasy board game in VR but the main world is set in the 80s. The social space that was new for players was called Heroes Hangout and was the DM (Deb) store.
Now to get there we had to think outside the box, well we didn't have to but it's VR so we should!
Demeo has a main menu that is a stunning Game Box (I also did the UX for that). So there is a jump off point needed but the actual way of navigating could be cooler!
The main menu in question
Navigation
This part we had to align to the existing menu so it was cohesive!
But when that button is pressed, let's really make the player's feel like they're in the 80s!
From Demeo, players will be able to join the gameshop. They will be able to join a public lobby, or a private one. Navigation should be intuitive from the main demeo lobby level.
Criteria
Players can see public rooms
Players can join a private room with a code
Room Information is the room number and capacity.
Players should be able to navigate back to the main menu easily.
What did they have in the 80s?
I grew up in the 90s so I am fully aware of analog methods on how people would try to get info on stores etc. So I dusted off those deep parts of the brain and started looking at physical interfaces.
The Rolodex
A rolodex was a spinning record holder traditionally for contact details so we thought maybe we could have the addresses of the stores that the player would visit. (We need to suspend reality a little since why would they all be on the same store but that's not for discussion now)
Private rooms would have to align with our existing way
While joining a a room, the rolodex cover slides back up and we see the waiting state.
Now the idea was cool but it didn't really mesh with the functions it needed to do so onto another interface!
The Phonebook
Here we could have business blocks for the store and then add in fake adverts for our other games which'd be very cool. It's 80s, tactile and pages make complete sense!
but what about private rooms? Oh I got you, remember the massive phones?
We could use the digital display to show loading and errors so it fits with our needs!
Otherwise we could try…
Map
This was another exploration where we could have town locations for the store!
Also the phone would be used.
Which was chosen?
We chose the phonebook of course! So now it was time to flesh out the flows and screens for all the use cases.
Main Screen
If a room is filled however, that room has a disabled button to prevent the player’s from joining.
Clicking the search button will bring the phone up for players to search for a particular room to join directly. This will help for large lists of rooms for the player to scroll through or private instances.
The player will have to enter the code for the room, when the minimum count is entered on the phone, the yes button will activate.
Entering a 5 digit number and pressing the Yes button will begin trying the custom room.
If a room is not found, then the player will get the error message on screen temporarily before going back to the default state.
This book would also be inside Heroes Hangout and be used to swap instance or go home so we'd replace the main menu button with a Go Home naturally.
And then the flows for developers:
Final Result
The artists really turned it out with the final pass, it looked so authentic!
