Hello adventurer! Today, we’re looking at quite a simple game. It’s not an AAA game and not heavy on UI or menus. I selected this game because I think it’s a good example of a minimalist and artistic game (and I really liked playing it).
The Midnight Walk is a moody and spooky first-person game that shows that you can design the UX and UI to fit the game while keeping it minimalistic!

This game has no HUD, no Map, no UI markers… so how do they communicate and guide players?

Fire is a big theme in this game, with multiple towns having lost their fire and the landscape being covered in darkness and snow. The theme is also carried over into other game mechanics, with lighting matches or candles and guiding the player to follow the lights. This is a great way to combine story and themes to guide players to make a great player experience.

Although the lights are not always super obvious, because the game is generally very muted and dark, the game visuals and levels are simple enough so it never really becomes a problem to find the light.

In some parts of the game, a turquoise light appears and guides the player to specific areas. This is used when other lights are not around or the player needs to backtrack to a specific point, so adding new environmental hints doesn’t work.

Although there is no explanation as to what the light is supposed to be or represent… maybe the spark of creativity that motivates us to keep going through dark times?

The game uses 2 types of Tutorials:
1) A short text on screen.
or
2) Notes that you pick up that tell you about upcoming dangers and what to look out for.

Both of these are great UX because it is adapted to the situation and complexity of the action.

On-screen Text: They also do a good job of showing the hint text again later when it needs to be used, so the player doesn’t walk around confused, not knowing what to do next.

The Notes: Make you feel like you found something valuable (although they are not well hidden), so you pay attention to them more than if this were presented as a standard block of text on the HUD while the game was paused or played in the background.

PS, The Notes can also be found in the game menu, so if the player needs another reminder or forgot what to do, which is always something a game should have.
We have all started playing a game to later (perhaps weeks later) pick it up again, just to forget how to play or what to do next.

Using simple icons instead of text across the most common interactions is a way to simplify the design and make interactions simple and quick to understand.

I liked how they kept this consistent across the game and for all simple interactions.

The prompts and icons have:

At the (few) moments in the game where there are multiple possible things to interact with, they do a good job of showing which ones are available to interact with and which one is selected.

As you collect key items across the game’s story, the item appears large on the screen with a short text to describe what it is. This screen comes up when picking up new items. It is a great choice to automatically show the item and details when it is collected because in a minimalist game like this, where all items have a story to tell.

Zooming in on an object like this will also tell the player it is important and they should spend some time reading about it… which is less likely to happen if they have to open a menu to find this info.

In most parts of the game, you travel with a little friend called Pot-boy. He is acting as your guide, so if you don’t know what path to take, you can always follow him. He also stops in front of points of interest to hint that something can be interacted with.

This is an intuitive and minimalistic way to guide players without adding UI markers or maps to constantly guide players where to go.

This game has a very interesting mechanic I have not seen before in a game that I want to mention (let me know if you have). It is very simple in its design and function, but very effective.

👁️ You have a button to close your eyes: to open up new paths or listen for hidden things.

Why does this stand out to me?
This is a scary game, and in scary games you usually don’t want to take your eyes away from the thing that is hunting you. But in this game, it is how you defeat them or find your way forward.
I think it’s interesting how they used a basic human instinct like this (it’s scary to not see) and made it a feature.

This is a clever way to avert expectations and make their game scarier, just by using a very simple mechanic from a player's point of view.

What did you think about this lesson? Please give me your feedback and questions through this link:

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