(mashedmarket)

Last week on mashedmarket, I started thinking about the minor shortcomings of Fallout 3’s amazing Pip-Boy 3000. This and next Monday, I’ll be detailing how Bethesda might alter that device’s versatile but labyrinthine interface in order to improve players’ interactions with the game. I’m no seasoned pro, but it’s been fun exercising my design sensibilities. Here’s hoping you enjoy what I’ve come up with. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment!

Fallout 3 is an innately convoluted ecosystem of emergent complexity in which manifold player choices create a feeling of agency, but also give way to some unforeseen situations. Want to carry that armor back to Megaton and make a sale? Crap — too heavy. Feel like a nice long nap to heal your crippled limbs? Tough luck — that’s not your bed. Hoping to talk your way out of running an errand? Not gonna happen — you’ve got low charisma and a gun in your hand.

When players roam the Capital Wasteland, all kinds of seemingly tiny decisions wind up effecting what happens. As Bethesda notes in their unusually revealing design diary, the key to navigating this overwhelmingly intricate system of choice and consequence is

Pip-Boy, a classic element of the [Fallout] series that exists as both an important object in-game as well as the player’s primary method of interacting with his character.

The 3000 is, indeed, a great tool, and, as a menu system, it does just about everything right. However, as I hinted in my last post, it’s this uneven relationship between the menus and the device itself that causes player problems. To put it another way, the Pip-Boy 3000 is an interface first and a contraption second, but it should be acting as both simultaneously in order to maximize gamer immersion.

Bethesda’s “Design and Development of the Pip-Boy Model 3000” diary entry details the thinking behind Pip-Boy’s conceptual design. Lead Artist Istvan Pely notes that the 3000’s development was inspired by “commercial product design and military industrial design of the 1950’s to early 1960’s.” Furthermore, it “uses a monochrome cathode ray tube…is cast out of a metal alloy, not plastic,” and is “an ergonomic nightmare.” This careful attention to detail is wonderful; it gives Pip-Boy character. So why not enhance an already strong key element using more than just aesthetics? 

As I noted last week, Pip-Boy tasks three separate modes (stats, items, and data) with governing a total of five different submenus each. What’s more, every one of those submenus consists of several specific manipulables. You can see the whole thing laid out above: the three mode buttons are positioned just below the screen and are colored a pretty conspicuous red, while the five submenus run horizontally along the bottom and appear in green. The specific manipulables are also green and show up vertically-oriented at the left side of the screen. To navigate this maze of options, players use L1 and R1 to select modes, left and right to switch between submenus, and up and down to highlight manipulables.

My main complaint with the system is that I’m forever confusing what navigates between modes as opposed to submenus. I find Fallout 3 unnecessarily difficult to negotiate because I keep accidentally selecting one when meaning to highlight the other. The trouble stems from the fact that both are on a horizontal plane. After all, there’s not a great deal of difference in L1 and left…both buttons do practically the same thing given this particular context.

It seems to me that the solution lies in creating a more deliberate method of transitioning from one mode to the next. Submenus should stay as they are — a quick couple of left or right taps and you’re there. But, when gamers want to stop managing their items and start poring over data, this fairly substantial change in activity should be reflected with a decidedly purposeful mechanic. Requiring players to depress L1 or R1 and then tap either left or right before shifting between stats, items, and data might help reduce confusion. The added step would act as a safeguard against mistakes rather than a barrier to action.

While this may seem like an insignificant detail, it could potentially make a considerable difference. And, to enhance the effect, perhaps your avatar’s other hand could drift into view and physically push the Pip-Boy’s appropriate mode button. This would certainly be in keeping with Bethesda’s realization of the 3000 as an in-game object, while at the same time helping to bridge the interface gap. Of course, that little motion would likely present quite the animation challenge. Who knows — maybe Bethesda tried some of this stuff and thought better of it.

At any rate, next week I’ll be back to take one more long look up and down the innovative Pip-Boy 3000. Expect some bigger, more exciting suggestions…I promise I’m not just going to advise one extra button press, alright? I hope you’ve enjoyed the series thus far and appreciate your sticking with me.