From september 2021, on going
Product design, UX, UI integration, Rapid Prototyping, High-Fi mockups, Graphic Design, 3D Illustration, Motion Design
Test Drive Unlimited solar crown official website
Test Drive Unlimited solar crown on steam
Kylotonn (KT-racing) official website
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (TDUSC) is a MMO racing game offering a realistic driving experience. It is a complex game as it proposes an ambivalent immersion between cruising and racing through a multiplayer open-world and challenging racing tracks.
I joined the project in 2021, following my experience at Renault Car, I already had a sensibility for racing games as they were a great part of my childhood. Still I had to catch up on the most recent references and to experience the previous games of the Test-Drive license I never had the chance to play.
This is the most complex project I had the chance to work on. The design of a game is not only about creating a product, but a multitude of tools interacting in a virtual world with its own rules. What I've learned at Renault Vision on driving HUDs was an asset, but yet a small part of what defines a Test Drive experience.
At the beginning of September 2021, I became part of the UX team. My co-workers were coming from more academic psychology backgrounds, and I knew that I would find my place in the team thanks to my field experience in applied systemic design. Slowly along the years, I took more responsibilities on the UI, motion and graphical experience of TDUSC, teaming alongside 3d Artists, tech arts and devs on different features.
The UX and UI teams are pivot points between Game Direction, Game-Design and Developers. It is a support role to every speciality, which grants a global vision on the project. One of the few teams having an overview on all the features. Our complementary profiles were valuable assets for a holistic design approach as we learned from each other's strengths and design sensibilities.
Game designers are the ones who create and maintain this subtle balance. Therefore, UX in video-games is not only to create the most powerful tool. Since we address a player, a user-centered design also means knowing when to challenge it. With the game designers we create a balance between frustration and pleasure, that must also match with usability, and accessibility.
This special position in the production taught me a lot about the essential complementary roles and soft-skills needed to optimize the experience design process.
In such big games, creating an experience does not mean to design a single product, but a multitude of "products within the product" that are all parts of a different bigger world and story.
A coherence of interaction within a product is the goal to achieve as a designer, but it can be even more complex in a game, where each interface has a different purpose/location. They are all unique and conceived by different designers, but are a part of a bigger picture and must remain coherent in it. For instance we created interfaces used to interact with other players while driving a car, customize your character, paint and expose your cars, buy and customize your houses, play poker with your friend in a casino … and so many other interactions
Game UX and UI designers have to develop a design system and models of interactions that remain constant while being used with different controllers (Various gamepads, keyboard, steering wheels, and custom made controllers for players with disabilities), in variable situations at different levels of the game.
You can see in the following videos, a selection of different features designed for TDUSC.
Playtests are the best ways to make sure that a feature is affordable and how it can be optimized in next iterations. We used a great variety of playtests going from weekly mass tests including all the workers, to guerilla testing, to feature oriented playtests.
The tests also are tools to help maintain and vulgarize the user-centered design process. It confronts the game designers and developers vision to a scientific and rigorous reality. Not only a validation of features (realized by the QA’s) regular tests are useful to refine the personas and are regular reminders for artists and designers that “ even if we too are players, we do not design for ourselves.”
You can see below the gameplay evolution from the earliest playtests I organized to the late TDUSC roaming experience.
Assuming more and more responsibilities of a Technical UI artist during the game development I had the opportunity to design and integrate my features from the earliest wireframes to the final results in the game engine. Also engaging as a UI designer in the creation of icons, illustrations, motion design...
Following the evolution of our artistic direction, I also had the opportunity to use and develop my blender skills, being able to work with the 3D artists to create, reuse and render 3D assets and illustrations in the UI .
Following the release of Test Drive in september 2024, the game production entered a new era with the season system. New content was added every 3 month. This included quality of life features, new vehicles but also the complete new level of Ibiza, new game modes and even a casino with a first person playable poker game.
After gaining experience in several companies, it was time for me to tackle a big project like TDUSC. I had confidence in my skills, and this experience did represent a challenge as the User Experience of a game is really demanding on all the aspects of the job. Plus the reality of the production and the state of the UX-job market ensured each member of the UX team great responsibilities. I realize now that it naturally guided the learning process of several soft-skills including management and design evangelism which I’m sure will be game-changers assets for the next projects I’ll be part of.
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