The most robust game engines are often fragmented and bloated, making iteration slow and context switching constant. Furthermore, leading engines are costly, technically massive, and inaccessible to non-professional developers. Chaotic’s goal was to unify game development workflows into a single, cohesive editor experience in the browser, that delivers AAA quality games instantly to the browser, making both the engine and games easily available to all.
I interviewed indie and AAA developers to uncover pain points: tunnel vision, poor asset context, remote collaboration, visual feedback, run and load times, etc. I then conducted a UX audit on Chaotic’s existing prototype, identifying heuristic failures and promoting usability enhancements (i.e. leaning int Jakob’s Law, Hick’s Law, Aesthetic Usability Effect). Finally I ran a competitive analysis to understand information architecture comforts and cognitive load challenges to reveal opportunities for clarity and simplification of workflows.
I designed a flexible layout for all categorical contexts that could be customized in size and view. It made for context-sensitive panels and toolbars that surfaced the most relevant information when needed–minimizing clutter and cognitive load. I employed a “three level” constraint to each area of the interface. This required all red route tasks to be able to be completed by navigating nor more than three selections and without leaving the current window. Every panel making up the interface was designed to be added, removed and/or saved on demand, adding persistent layouts to support diverse workflows across roles.
I integrated real-time overlays and gizmos (i.e. transform handles, lighting previews, performance metrics, etc.) letting developers instantly fine-tune scenes without recompiling or switching interfaces.
To enable non-developer access (i.e. publishers, project managers, investors, etc.) and remote collaboration I designed an account creation and management module that allowed for user-specific editor presentation and feature permissions. Furthermore, I designed a commenting feature that enabled any user to annotate inside and outside the context of the rendered space.
I designed a preview and play modes with allowed users to experience scenes and full gameplay instantly, with property adjustment feedback and contextual error feedback.
The studio editor interface enabled developers and non-developers alike the opportunity to visually create and collaborate for the first time when using the Chaotic Engine. This effort helped Chaotic achieve product market fit by growing its game studio user base from 0 to 3 in 12 months.
Early access users reported a greater average satisfaction with workflow and tool usability over a 12 month interval.
Users can more quickly iterate and make key changes more than 25% faster, with hot-reload of the engine and instant scene and game deployment.
