Following the initial main menu concept, I created a crude concept of what the settings menu would look like. It was going to be a hollow graphic rectangle that would contain buttons to cycle through each settings menu.

Immediately after sketching for our main menu, I jumped to our settings menu. The constellation idea resonated with me, but after sketching out the first idea for our settings menu, I knew I wanted to expand on how to present constellations.

Subsequent sketches were born from what I had made in-engine this time. I used basic circles to test out different layouts and sketched out the ones that people liked. Eventually, layout three won over those who tested. Once established, I moved to sketch out my expanded idea of constellations; icons. Using constellations to represent each of the settings icons was a novel direction.

Sketches were drawn, testing layouts went by, and now it was time to fill in the details. For my first iteration, I used lines to trace circular stars to form our icons. I was originally going to have nebulas present on these buttons, but after moving over the star clusters, I found the simplified design a better fit here.

Our submenus being primarily comprised of stars was fitting, as it felt as if we were zooming in on our main menu buttons to see the stars up close.

I still wanted the nebula, specifically the one that represented the settings button, to be present. So, I placed a large one as the backdrop. However, this did not test well, as visual clarity was weak. With that, I scrapped it in favor of an alternative for the final iteration.

After playtests revealed that the button layout was intuitive and the visuals were clear and aesthetically pleasing, I landed on this iteration.

I used a sparse cluster of stars as the backdrop. This allowed for further visual clarity while still being pleasing to the eye. However, I still wanted the highlight nebula from the settings button to present to further the connection between the button and the menu. So, I used it to highlight each setting group name.

Once the layout was finalized, I made adjustments to the visuals.

I designed new art for star clusters used to form the buttons and backdrop for the settings. This move followed my desire to utilize UI images for visuals instead of particle systems. With this, I had more flexibility to make the transitions scene in the clip.

The credits menu follows a similar visual and programmatic structure as settings to keep menus consistent between submenus for the player and me.

When clicking on a sub-menu button, the constellation will trace along the stars to form the button icon using sliders.

I created a simple script to attach to every sub-menu button and drop the necessary game objects into said script. The same principle applies to how I tackled menu navigation and the main menu buttons.

Utilizing buttons to interact with sliders instead of the player directly interacting with sliders was fundamental to improving comfort, as sliders can be finicky in VR.

Settings options involving unique mechanics led me to provide tool-tips for players with questions.

All of the menu navigation and button behaviors were scripted by me, as I have mentioned before. I started with crude programming methods that involved long lists of code. Despite getting the job done, I knew there were better ways of handling my code.

I came to understand better methods of handling certain scripts, which led to more efficient code.

As seen above, this script went through a drastic transformation. Instead of showing or hiding the different settings through activation, I created a method that would allow me to cycle through each setting depending on the button pressed.

While on a level, the only prominent UI HUD element is what we call an AP Bar. This bar will fill with each aura point the player characters gather from hitting targets.

Each level is comprised of three stages that the player must pass sequentially. To pass a stage, one segment of the bar seen above must be filled. One segment for stage one, two for stage two, etc.

Since each of the two avatars the player controls can earn points by hitting targets, we had difficulty deciding on one or two segmented bars.

For this initial concept, I chose to utilize a single segmented bar.

Once I had designed and scripted the initial concept, I moved ahead and created a more visually appealing version of the segmented AP Bar. From here, I had garnered opinions and tested whether one or two bars were better for clarity.

It was quickly clear that one bar was the superior choice, but another problem that was brought up was the segments within the bar. Players wanted to fill up the entire bar during the first stage, which was unnecessary.

This led to my latest iteration.

No more segments; instead, it would be one seamless bar. I chose to keep it simple visually and have it curve downwards to hug the player’s upper vision to mitigate distraction away from the targets.

Testing proved this was a comfortable and easy-to-read design and position.

Our pause menu was to be akin to our main menu. We wanted to bring the player back to its calming atmosphere and vibes. In a way, we wanted to bring them back to the main menu. 

Since I already had a layout for the pause menu buttons to adopt, I needed to sketch out a backdrop for it. Instead of drawing it out, I went into Photoshop and whipped up a test background to drop in-game. This initial pass was well received, but there was room for improvement. It wasn’t until later that a diamond shape I made for the game inspired the direction for our pause menu.

I had a constellation trace into a diamond that then projected the pause menu with a video of our main menu environment serving as the backdrop. The shape and overall style were far more consistent with the rest of our game and UI, making this a worthy iteration. 

Overall, the process for this menu was shorter due to my experience with the rest of the game. I took the design and applied it to another menu.

Initially, I used the first iteration of our pause menu as a stand-in for a level progress menu. Once the final iteration was finished, I worked on this menu. A similar shape with some returning buttons, but we wanted to visually present the player's progress. Cuphead was thrown around as an idea, and I found it to be a perfect fit. In that game, if you die, a linear map is drawn of how far you were from killing the boss.

Once Cuphead’s approach was brought up, I immediately knew how it was going to look. Using stars to trace between felt very appropriate, so I got to work on the design and scripting its functionality.