The display
The Unreal game showed only the world until this day. It now has its heads-up display, rebuilt to match the browser game: score and chain at the top left, hull, lives and shield along the bottom with a charge meter that turns gold with "READY" when a charged shot can be released, eight power slots with the next one glowing gold, and a magenta boss health bar.
The text uses the browser game's two typefaces, Orbitron and Rajdhani. It is slightly larger than the browser's so it reads on a television, and slightly under the size the design notes asked for, because Orbitron's wide letters made the top line overlap at full size. That trade-off is the studio's to confirm.
A hit that says where, with what, and how hard
The browser game flashes an enemy white when it is hit. That tells you something landed, not where, with what or how hard. In Unreal, a shot that lands on an enemy, a boss or a capital ship starts a ripple at the exact point of impact: a hot spark, a bright front that crosses the hull and a warmer glow trailing behind it. The color comes from the weapon.
| weapon | ripple |
|---|---|
| Bullets | electric blue |
| Spreader | teal |
| Lightning | violet white |
| Missiles | orange |
| Orbs | gold |
| Full-charge fireball | red orange |
The laser and the ship's other shots use the ship's own color, and a charged shot hits with a bigger wave.
The first version washed the whole screen teal the moment the laser touched the siege cruiser, because a wave across a hull that large lights up an enormous area. Waves now weaken on bigger models, travel at a capped speed and keep a narrow front, and rapid-fire hits start a new ripple only every fraction of a second. On a capital ship they now read as a clear ripple around the impact.