Or a FPS programmers search history

Do you ever find yourself googling: “What does blood spray look like?”, “What happens when you shoot someone?”, “Man drowning”, or “How to make death feel good?” If so, you may be a game programmer (or a serial killer, I ain’t here to judge). 

I am building a first-person shooter and that involves shooting things (duh). As a UX programmer, it is my job to make the act of shooting work well and feel right. There are a few components to this. From a gameplay perspective, players need to know when they hit someone. To aim, they need to be able to tell where their bullets are going. This is doubly important as we do not have physical bullets (physics was a nightmare). 

Equally important is making the act of shooting someone feels good. The first step of UX design is figuring out what is meant by the word “good”. Should players feel excited? Scared? Nervous? Victorious? Just? Our game is about a hitman killing the mob, so the experience needs to feel gritty, impactful, and exciting. You are killed frequently so players will feel nervous and vigilant. 

How did we craft a shooting experience that meets these goals? 

When I joined Scorch the shooting feedback consisted of a gunshot sound and animation. The screen had a crosshair that expanded when shooting. When shot, enemies disappeared immediately. This was a good starting point, but QA feedback indicated that it was really hard to tell if you had shot or killed an enemy. Our black and white color scheme certainly added to the problem. If an enemy was in shadow it was impossible to tell if you had killed them or not. Additionally, our gun had spread which was incredibly frustrating to players since they couldn’t tell why they weren’t killing targets they thought they had hit. We needed user feedback!

The first piece of user feedback I added was a bullet hole decal that indicated where a shot had landed. This first indicator tested very well. People could finally see where their shots were going. 

However, this did nothing to help players know when they shot an enemy. For that, we wanted to modify the crosshairs. Having no premade animation, I decided to rotate the crosshairs slightly when a shot was a hit. This wasn’t as impactful with testers as bullet holes but we decided to leave it in regardless. An animation or color change would likely have been more noticeable. 

The next thing was to add bullet holes when you shot an enemy. This was slightly more complicated than adding them to walls as enemies tend to move. To make bullet holes move with enemies I needed to parent them to the enemy so they moved together. Now you could tell if you hit an enemy, but since bullet holes were black, it did no good when enemies were in shadow. It also did nothing to make killing feel more impactful. 

I am no VFX artist, but big flashy effects are just so fun! Hence I came to spend a week googling what blood spray looked like. My FBI agent must have had fun. I ended up making enemies explode into balls of blood aka a true blood vampire death. Now, you could tell when someone died… as long as they were not in the shadows. The blood was black and there was no way to change the color of a particle-based on its background with our shader. 

We eventually decided, after a ton of QA feedback and nudging from friends, family, and the Rockstar team, to add red. It was a radical choice. Blood was now bright even in shadow. Our lead designer edited the particle effects to add “Quentin Tarantino” levels of blood. Testers loved it! It captured that gritty dark theme we wanted and there was no way you wouldn’t know when you killed someone. We also turned the bullet holes red, marking hit enemies so players can shoot them more easily. 

We also added sprays of wood splinters and bricks when players shoot walls or crates. It helps players know where their shot went from a distance and makes the game feel even more gritty. Sound effects were also added so enemies now play noises when shot or killed. The audio is spatial so you can tell where the enemy is. This makes a big difference in understanding the world you are in.

As our game evolves we will need to update the user feedback but for now, enemy death feels hardcore and very film noir.