Overview
My first real project! As part of the new Windows Vista OS and an effort to bring the Xbox LIVE services to the PC, Microsoft created an internal team to port over Bungie's flagship title. Mostly a strict port there were PC focused features added on including a map editor, dedicated servers, and text chat. The original game also predated the Xbox LIVE achievements so those were layered on top.
Halo 2 for Windows Vista
My Role
As a UI Artist, I created or upgraded art assets and interactive screens including achievement icons, textures, UI elements, and a custom installation experience. I also designed and prototyped the game browser screen which had to function with both a keyboard/mouse or gamepad.
New Interfaces
As this was a port, I mostly just reauthored sprites to be higher resolution or adjusted screens for new aspect ratios. The new screens I designed were mostly for dealing with the addition of a keyboard, so a key mapping interface and adding a chat module to the pre-game lobby.
The introduction of a multiplayer game browser was the most intensive new screen added to the game. A game browser is a fairly complicated screen on it's own, adding the requirement that it also needed to be fully functional with a gamepad steered us toward a round of usability testing. I used Macromedia Director to develop a simple clickthrough prototype for testing. As this was my experience with user research I learned a ton and many tears were shed.
Achievement Icons
I designed a full set of achievement icons to pair with the newly designed achievements. The style was based on the existing multiplayer icons displayed when certain events are triggered, like a kill streak. A set of these got turned into magnets, which I didn't know about until I found them for sale at Gamestop.
