That One Time I Bought an Indie Video Game Because of its User Interface

You heard me correctly: I once purchased a video game with no prior knowledge of it except for the fact that I knew it had a gorgeous user-interface. Let’s backtrack a bit.

The Background

The year is 2021. I’ve been at college for a while, became the president of the club I was once a graphic designer for and have been drowning myself in game-design related content.

Originally when writing this post, I believed I’d found this beauty of a game from one of my favorite Youtube channels, Design Doc, but after a fruitless search I have no idea how I came upon such a game. I have a habit of digging through Nintendo’s online shop constantly so that no game escapes my grasp, but considering I purchased the game almost a year after it came out, I have no clue how I discovered this gem now.

Suffice to say, this game came out of nowhere. There aren’t many videos or reviews about it, it was the developer’s first game, and it went unnoticed by many. But not everybody.

Somewhere, whether that’s browsing a shop or some random video online, I saw snippets of footage featuring these gorgeous images with a color palette that came straight out of my dreams.

Every color on the screen is derived from one of these and I love it. Every “level” has a slightly different color palette but it always leads back to these five colors;  considering I’m a hoe for anything blue-green, just this alone would warrant purchasing it.

I know, I’m teasing you, but if I just told you what the game was upfront, that’d ruin the surprise, you know?

Diegetically in Love

Anyways, I wasn’t just enamored by the color palette, although I must admit that already had me head over heels. What hooked me next was the fact that the game’s user-interface is entirely diegetic.

Hm, let me explain.

Every piece of a game’s user interface can be sorted into one of four categories: diegetic, non-diegetic, spatial, or meta. These refer to how the game’s UI is viewed through the lens of the world. If you’re interested, this source here has a lovely info graphic that goes over the basics of all four.

Diegetic UI exists in the video game’s world and is interactable within it. If a player character wears a helmet and their health and ammo are present on screen, that’s diegetic. If they pull out a compass to navigate and you the player use that as well, that’s diegetic.

Non-diegetic UI solely exists for the player’s benefit. These are random counters you might see on screen at any time, or when you hit “ESC” to pop open a menu that pauses the game entirely. They don’t exist in the world, they exist purely for the player to interact with.

Now, one of these isn’t inherently better than the other. Games can use one or the other, or more commonly use both to further player immersion while keeping everything legible and understandable for the player. While a lot of games can use a solely non-diegetic UI, it’s quite rare to find a game whose user interface is entirely diegetic.

Back to the game. This game is one of those rarities. A beautiful little gem in the sea of subpar games littering online stores. The in-game menu is something that’s actually being used by the player character. There are meters, there are numbers, there’s a map, and somehow nothing is overwhelming.

It’s a piece of art.

The Actual Game

“Oh my gosh E, show me the dang game already!”

Hush. I’m trying to put you in the same shoes as I was prior to purchasing the game. It’s about the journey, not the destination after all.

But fine, let’s go ahead and give you a gander at the in game menu screen:

Was that what you were expecting? I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite video game UIs: In Other Waters (2020) by Jump Over the Age.

​​In Other Waters is a sci-fi adventure game, where you play as an artificial intelligence (yes, you), helping a xenobiologist who has crash landed on an alien planet. This menu? That’s you. I don’t think I’ve seen a single game do something like this, where the player is a MENU.

Gosh, writing this post makes me want to play the game again.

That aside, this game was essentially built for me.

Sea-green color palette? Check.

Clean UI that is legible and not overwhelming? Double check.

A nice font? Triple check.

Furthers the game’s themes? Super-mega-ultra check.

Color Palette Invocations & Innovations

The image I showed you was only the first level of the game. Well, “area”.

As you slowly explore the alien world, you enter new areas that build off the initial color palette and bring in new gameplay mechanics that make the game more interesting. I won’t go over the mechanics, but you NEED to see these color palette innovations.

Hm, the green and oranges here are a tad sickly, aren’t they? Almost like the area you’re in is filled with noxious gasses and you have to be wary of how you navigate it. The orange color gives off major “warning” vibes, which we’ll see in the next few images as well. Essentially in the game, greens and blues are reminiscent of life and safety while the warmer toned colors of yellow, orange, and red invoke caution and danger. Color themes!

By the time the player arrives in this area, the game has introduced black into the color palette. Since one of your main goals is to explore and discover, introducing black here reduces the player’s visibility and hinders their movement. You might notice that your depth on the right side of the UI has increased, and the introduction of black here helps further that idea. Moving away from the black, as I previously mentioned, the oranges here are more vibrant , giving the player a sense of unease.

Here’s the last bit I’ll show you, but man is this color palette unease-inducing. The stark red against the black background, with still the hints of that original blue-green seeping through… it gives me shivers. Unlike in the last area, the white outline of your viewable area is now transparent, lowering your visibility even further. We are deeper into the planet now, and it feels like something terrible is about to happen, and maybe it is.

Play This Game!

I hope my passionate rambling has inspired at least one person to play this game. You can find it online on Steam, or buy it on Nintendo Switch for a measly $15.

The developer has also recently released a new game, entitled Citizen Sleeper, that also looks gorgeous. I haven’t had the chance to play it, but it’s described as a “dystopian slice-of-life RPG”. So, that tag-line alone makes me want to throw some money at the developers.

As always, if you have any questions about any of my analysis here or the game itself, feel free to let me know in the comments! As well, if you know of any games that are similar in nature, I’m begging you to let me know. I’d love to experience more games like this, and I’m sure some other folks would like to too! So, on that note, I hope y’all have a lovely rest of your week, and I’ll see you around!