Damn Fine AD+UX

Drawing on Diablo and Defense of the Ancients for its inspiration, Demonborn reached 80-85% completion, and was slated to become a AAA PC downloadable massively multiplayer online game, with the website serving a multifunctional purpose - gameplay setup, game queue, marketplace, and community.

The story goes that the DemonBorn were the result of ancient Mayans finding the gate to the Underworld.  Research into actual Mayan myths of the underworld were rich with imagination, and gave birth to the perfect metaphor for the site concept as a portal to the underworld.

From UX design / wireframing, to concept, art direction, and design, I worked side-by-side with developers to create the site, which served as a launchpad to gameplay. 

Using Adobe Flex, we developed a site Communicator, where players can interact, chat, email, strategize, view achievements and join the game queue. 

WIREFRAME: Registered User, Communicator Expanded
 

BOOK OF HEROES + COMMUNICATOR Expanded, Featuring Live Chat:
 

Taking many cues from popular gaming & social networking sites, past & present, we wanted to create a game-centric community where players can interact. This meant player profile pages, clan pages, friending & invite functionality, forums & message board integration, and more. 

COMMUNITY, Featuring Player Profile Page: 

I also worked to simplify the in-game GUI, ultimately creating a minimalistic interface that at once gives critical information at-a-glance, loadout & weapon options, without detracting from the fantastically art directed in-game graphics. 

GAME GUI
 

GAMESPOT SAYS:

Envisioned as a cross between Diablo and the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, Demonborn drops up to 10 competing players on a variety of battlefields, asking them to complete an array of cooperative and competitive objectives with customizable characters. The game is designed to grow beyond the original release, with new skills, equipment, levels, and characters either packed in to full expansions or added by way of microtransactions. An early clip of Demonborn can be seen below:

GAMEPLAY TRAILER: