The Problem
Lies of P is a terrific new Souls-like* game from Neowiz Games. The game is beautiful and combines the satisfying parry system of Sekiro with the overall combat feel of Bloodborne. Neowiz uses the Souls-genre to tell a dark, steampunk version of Pinocchio, in which the titular character (here called “P”) must battle a city of full of rampaging robot puppets that have come to life.
It’s not clear about WHAT you are upgrading or HOW to upgrade.
If that story sounds terrible to you, it did to me too. But it somehow works and creates a fairly compelling experience. The one stumbling block I’ve had so far, though, concerns one of the (too many) upgrade systems, the “P-Organ” — yes, that’s actually the name. It’s a skill tree upgrade system found in many games, but here, as I’ll get it into below, it’s not clear about WHAT you are upgrading or HOW to upgrade. I saw a perfect UX problem. So I decided to take a crack at the P-Organ (cue laughter**) and see if I could make it more clear.
* For those unaware, a “Souls-like” is a pseudo genre of games that are heavily inspired by the notoriously difficult, baroque, and at times inscrutable Action-RPG series, Dark Souls.
** this will be the last aside about the humor found in calling it the “P-Organ.”
Current Process
Once you sit down in Geppetto’s tool chair, he can perform upgrades on P through his P-Organ.
I’m not going to bother getting into the insane lore here but, again, it mostly, somehow, works.
Below is a step by step walkthrough slideshow demonstrating the convoluted and unclear P-Organ upgrade process.
☟
Was I the only one that was confused?
(No)
Despite how obviously confusing this system appeared, a small part of me worried, “maybe it was just me who didn’t get it?”
After all, I completely didn’t notice the bumper buttons icons that indicated I scroll to other upgrade types. So I went to Reddit and Youtube to see what people were saying about the P-Organ.
Rewrite
Clearly I wasn’t alone in feeling lost and confused by the P-Organ. As I set out to make improvements to this system, I wanted to keep the spirit of the overall aesthetic and not completely overhaul it or introduce elements that didn’t seem to fit what’s possible within the current structure.
An extremely needed fix was the copy involving how upgrades work
An immediate, and probably the most needed, fix was the copy involving how upgrades work on the main screen. It needs to be made clear that players need to fill BOTH of the empty slots in order to acquire the upgrade:
Not a drastic change, but a few extra words go a long way toward clearly and directly explaining what the player needs to do to increase pulse cells. I would include this “Equip both slots . . . “ copy to each upgrade.
Revise
Next was creating a sense of location, making clear the available options, and cleaning up the perceived user flow.
The screen involving the various types of upgrades that players can equip to the empty slots was full of many micro pain points that added up to an un-navigable screen with confusing microcopy. As noted above, it’s hard to notice the option to move to different “types,” it’s unclear when more options will unlock, and the player, overall, isn’t sure of what they can or should do here.
Breakdown of the Adjustments
Navigation Bar
Locked Tiers
“All” Types 1
“All” Types 2
Preserving Mystery
The tricky aspect about redesigning something within a souls-like games is that there needs to be level of opacity to how things work, like, for instance, how an attack or stat functions, what direction the player needs to go, a bosses weak point, etc. Much of the experience of these types of games is getting lost in a world, literally and figuratively. Clarity or handholding features are not keeping with the spirit of these often punishing, mysterious games.
Clarity or handholding features are not keeping with the spirit of these often punishing, mysterious games
So even things like menu design and copy needs to be a little withholding. I kept this in mind throughout the redesign and updated aspects that were completely misleading (like the amount of slots needed to fill), where navigation was obtuse (not being able to view all “types” at once) and options were inconspicuous (noticing there are various type options), without removing the necessary esoteric spirit.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to repeatedly dying as I work my way towards my battle with the King of Puppets.
