Game UX Heuristics #3: Personalization

In this post, I will describe how the game should support the player through broadly understood personalization and its consequences.

Players’ habits

Different players have different habits. The settings allow you to minimize the barrier between the player and the game world. In this way, we will enable decisions to be made at the “attack” level and not on the “push to attack” level. It is worth remembering that such settings are not limited to control, picture and sound only. The gameplay itself also sometimes requires you to deviate from the default settings. A great example is the recent production of EA Sports. You can personalize the team, which can take up to several minutes. Do you want to play a quick rematch after the match is over? No problem, but the game doesn’t remember the customization you made several minutes ago. Really?

Players’ limitations

People with congenital or temporary disabilities are just as important as not the more important group of people using personalization. I wrote more about it on the occasion of accesibility in games here, but I cannot skip this group of players in this post.

Cutscenes

Cutscenes are a separate element of the game personalization. More precisely, the possibility of skipping cutscenes in the game. A topic so irritating that it has already got own line of memes. We understand that the cutscene is crucial to the plot, but the player should be able to skip this element. Don’t make the player live the experience the way you imagined it. 🙂 Such a scene should not contain elements that the player has to remember. All elements and decisions should be available from the interface. And so we move smoothly to the next thread:

Remember & save

All elements and changes should be memorized. It concerns both the settings and the game itself. Autosave is standard and a great example of removing as many elements as possible from the player that require emerging from the game. We should also remember about the possibility of withdrawing from it. For settings, it is the functionality of restoring default settings. In case of saving, enable manual saving.

Personalization in games – summary

Personalization allows you to minimize the barrier between the player and the game world. From the very first immersion, the player can focus on the gameplay and not on communication with the game (image, sound, control, saving). For some, personalization is the only way to experience the game. When designing a game, do not relegate these factors to the background. The more you try to personalize, the faster your player will be immersed in the experience you have prepared for him.