SHIPPED DESIGN
The HUD design for The Bureau needed to incorporate quite a bit of information. In addition to the standard shooter elements of health, weapon and ammo, the player also needed information about the AI controlled Agents. To encourage the player to use the different available abilities, cool down icons and animations were added to each Agent's UI element. Additional elements included the current mission objective, radio portraits for NPC's, a mini-map and various other pop-ups and tutorial systems.

EARLY REVISIONS
The HUD went through a number of iterations over the course of the three years I worked on the project. As the game became more tactical, it became necessary to include more and more information about the Squad Leader and his teammates. A change from first to third person perspective also had a significant impact on the design of the HUD.

SHIPPED DESIGN
The Battle Focus interface developed as a way for players to issue specific commands to individual agents and create complex battle plans during combat. Ultimately we created an expanding and contracting radial menu that showed the player all of the available commands at once, without cluttering the screen with 18 full sized icons all the time.

EARLY REVISIONS
Alongside the HUD, Battle Focus went through a long development process. Early on it was constrained by the first person camera and required the player to aim at targets in realtime. The switch to a third person camera allowed us to show the world from each agent's individual perspective, greatly increasing the tactical options available to the player. Ultimately the single radial menu proved to be the quickest, most intuitive method of giving players full control over the squad.

The Agent Management flow was designed to give players all the information needed to select and upgrade a squad of agents. Players could recruit new agents, customize each one, equip weapons and gear, and upgrade them through a class specific Perk Tree.

This style was then expanded to be used in several other fullscreen menus like the Mission Objectives and Mission Preparation screens.

For much of the development of The Bureau, the UI featured an aesthetic based on the graphic design style of 1960's advertising. It was decided later that this style, while visually interesting, did not match with the darker tone of the game. However I am still proud of the design work that I was able to create during this time.

In addition to style changes, a few interface designs dissapeared completely over the course of development. The weapon radial was created and then later removed after weapon capacity was reduced to two weapons. Similarly the research mode was determined to be too complex to support, so that content was also left out of the final product.