VALIDATE - UI Concept Art (2021)

Note: Alexis DeJesus and Dreba Borges are mentioned throughout the article due to their extensive contributions to the UI and implementation. Their page links are also available in the credits section.

Validate: Struggling Singles in Your Area is a 2022 video game created by Veritable Joy.

After the release of the 2021 demo I was tasked with creating a graphics roadmap for the bulk of the user interface elements required for the final game. These are laid out in the game flow map below:

A route is a "level" consisting of one of several playable characters meeting or dating one of the other playable characters. Players make choices to influence the route's ending, with "good endings" unlocking new routes.

The game startup and level select is a mostly linear progression with minimal overlap between the startup and gameplay loop interfaces. However, the options menu can be accessed on top of either interface at any time.

Game startup

Validate originally had a "prelude" (text over the above graphic) before leading to the title screen and then the main menu. The final game has a dedicated introductory cinematic with the prelude graphic used elsewhere.

Title screen concepts

Some concepts for the title screen's backdrop included committing the last-played route to game memory and using its respective "city vista" background (center), or cycling through backgrounds from gameplay (right).

The game's title screen and main menu concept (left, center) are combined in the final game (right).

Options menu concepts

CG gallery - launcher

Concept art on left, in-game redesign (right) by Alexis, additional implementation by Dreba

Players earn CG art during and at the end of routes, which can later be viewed from the gallery.

The CG gallery is one of the more programmatically-demanding screens in the game, due to loading in metrics for characters and CG art. It was also one of my favorites to design.

Hue-shifting

Concept on left, in-game implementation on right

During early development, Lisa wrote some custom code to shift the hues of graphical elements. This gets used in tandem with character motif coloration on universally-relevant graphics for flavor, such as the CG gallery's locked images (right).

For Validate, the character select (top row) has always doubled as promotional material (bottom). I designed the original promo layout which was used in the 2021 demo (left), and the final game redesign was by Alexis (right).

Character promo concepts - unused

Gameplay cell phone interface

Concept art on left, implementation on right

Each route has an "interlude" after the character selection screen which ends in the notification that a new route is available. It can be accepted to quick-launch the new route, or declined to go to character select 2 (the "date select") to view all available routes.

Scene transition concepts

There were a few scene transition concepts created for switching between route gameplay and the menu interfaces, although ultimately all transitions in the final game are handled by fades or a "wipe" effect (right).

Date select

Concept left, implementation right

Title card sample - day

Title card sample - night

The title cards act as a transition between the date select and the route's core gameplay.

Route core gameplay

In-game writing is mostly presented in a text box for narration (top-left) or as speech bubbles (top-right). Both are virtually unchanged between concept and final game.

The phone icon (top-left) is used to open the character's phone, which contains applets and is used for conversations via text messaging (concept bottom-left, implementation bottom-right).