Challenge

River City Girls Zero is a port of a classic Super Famicom action game (Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-tachi no Banka) that was originally only released in Japan. For its Western release, the developers expanded the aesthetic they had already defined from their River City Girls games. 

For this project, I wanted to create a Super fun and energetic start screen and menu design for the game that also leveraged the River City Girls' new comic book-inspired aesthetic and the amazing updated character art. I wanted to make sure I improved both the visuals and the experience, making sure that the options were more intuitive and clear.

Outcome

I started by doing a lot of the basic UX exploration one does before even designing, Understanding who the user was helped define the correct visual direction and the best way to present information. Leaning into the rich history of the game series and 80’s Japanese banchō culture also helped me make more informed choices.

I took the existing River City Girls' new comic book-inspired aesthetic and pushed it to the extreme. I wanted a more chaotic and layered feel. This game is all about being on the run from the law and I wanted to express that feeling while still keeping things fun.

I wanted the interactions to feel tactile and have a lot of movement for positive feedback for the user. I made sure my animations were fast enough that they didn't become a slog but slow enough that they like felt natural/realistic bits of paper moving around. 

One of the things that always I found to be confusing for users when playing these types of game ports is the display options. Screen sizes, filters, and borders oftentimes have dozens of options, but it isn't always clear what the differences are. To solve this I added a preview with descriptions so users could easily see what each option is actually doing without having to come in and out of the game menu.

Results

The end result was a super fun and energetic take on River City Girls Zero’s start screen and game menus that elevated the comic book-inspired aesthetic. This new design increases the visibility and affordances of on-screen items and creates many moments of delight while adding minimal extra time to the user flow.

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