Are we okay?
Your life. Your partner’s life. Shield and downed status only when relevant.
THE FINISHED GAME / UI DIRECTION 03
A little less UI.
A little more valley.
Small things carved from this world. Clear when you need them. Quiet when you don’t.
01
EVERY ELEMENT EARNS ITS PLACE
What the game actually needs.
What can I do?
Your abilities, their cooldowns and shared ultimate readiness. Only your role’s actions.
What needs me now?
A nearby interaction, a prayer in progress, or a partner needing help.
Lives at the edges
- Two small health indicators
- Role-specific ability tokens
- One discreet pause control
- Touch movement + actions on tablet
Leaves the play screen
- FPS, draw calls, camera and profile tools
- Clock, day counter and giant location signs
- Permanent instructions and banner stacks
- Invented mana, inventory or RPG menus
A minimap is not part of this first design. Use the valley’s landmarks and a partner direction cue; add navigation only if playtesting shows you get lost. Room setup belongs in the lobby. Connectivity appears in play when there is a problem.
See the starting point
Historical screenshot, not a fresh capture. It shows why we are simplifying; it does not prove the present game looks exactly like this.
02
NOT JUST A PICTURE OF DEPTH
Press a little piece of the valley.
These controls are real 3D meshes in this page. Stone bases, raised symbols, brass edges. Press one; turn the depth slider. This is a UI material/layout prototype, not a playable game.
3D preview unavailable on this browser. The generated concept and full plan remain available below.
Tap an ability token to see its proposed feedback.
Desktop: attack, evade and jump use mouse/keys. Their permanent buttons disappear. Keep E, Q, R and the Mage’s four spell tokens.
Tablet: thumb movement on the left, large invisible hit areas around small sculpted actions on the right. Expand this preview on a tablet to judge actual reach.
3D art may be compact; its hit target must not be. Target sizes in the final game: at least 48 CSS px for secondary touch actions, 64–80 px for attack, and clear spacing. This embedded preview scales down on phones and is not a touch-ergonomics certification.
How all-3D UI can stay usable
Render screen-anchored meshes through an orthographic HUD camera in the existing renderer. This keeps the art steady when the player camera moves. Raised icons, health fills and cooldown arcs are geometry. Use the valley’s cel palette and restrained depth.
Transparent DOM hit areas and accessible labels sit over the meshes. Subtitles and essential small text stay crisp. World-space prompts belong only near an interactable or partner. UI art does not inherit combat shake, obscure the centre, require perspective guessing or rotate continuously.
This page uses a separate, on-demand Three.js canvas for isolation. The eventual game should share its renderer; this is not an engine architecture change.
03
THE HUD FOLLOWS THE MOMENT
It doesn’t all stay on screen.
❧
A BREATH OF SPACE
Explore with your eyes up.
Health settles into two quiet marks. Abilities stay compact. A small prompt appears only when you approach something useful.
Proposed behavior · choose a moment to update the 3D preview above
You both press prayer.
One ceremony at a time. First accepted speaker keeps the turn. The other sees “Your beloved is praying.” Their mic stays off.
She needs a simple heal.
A small lotus at her feet, a short ribbon and a clear health gain. No levitation or sky explosion. Feet stay grounded.
You move or disconnect.
Deliberate movement or dodge cancels recording; release submits. A disconnect or service failure cancels safely, without punishment. Late results cannot revive a cancelled ceremony.
The result arrives twice.
One prayer ID, one result. One voice line. One application of healing, buffs or punishment on both screens.
All four rules above are proposals to settle, not features claimed as implemented. On the server: idle → recording → judging → response → idle. A bounded timeout releases a stuck ceremony. The partner stays in control; recording does not secretly take over their character.
04
ONE READABLE LANGUAGE OF POWER
More power. Not more panels.
Elemental
Ice, fire or lightning carves one small sigil into the Knight’s status. The blade itself tells the bigger story.
Current: Mage spells grant an ordinary infusion, normally 12s.Sun + tide
Fire and water share one split emblem. Ordinary spells should not overwrite this stronger state.
Current: blessing 22s, miracle 30s; ultimate normally 16s.Shared ultimate
One linked-ring token fills. It becomes clearly ready. One shared activation, one cost.
Proposal: display actual readiness, not a permanent percentage label.❧Heal
Close to the beloved.
Small, brief, grounded.
❧Blessing
Lotus opens.
Power reaches the weapons.
❧Miracle
The full shared spectacle.
The sky finally earns its turn.
That strip expresses visual scale, not final VFX geometry. Existing combat numbers are not rebalanced here. Success tiers, resurrection eligibility, proximity limits and buff replacement still need gameplay approval.
Current abilities, without inventing new RPG systems
Knight
Four native sword swings · charged attack · evade · jump · partner intercept (E) · shared ultimate (Q) · commune (R).
Mage
Three-step staff attack · heavy nova · evade · jump · Frost Lance / Shatterlance / Cinder Fall / Storm Lance · partner infusion (E) · shared ultimate (Q) · commune (R).
On tablet, preserving access to these actions is mandatory. Heavy-attack input must be settled alongside the proposed hold-to-continue combo behavior; one hold gesture cannot mean both.
05Approve the shape.
THE PATH TO A FINISHED HUD
Approve the shape.
Then earn the finish.
- 01
Lock what stays
Approve role layouts, contextual prompts and input behavior. Resolve prayer ownership and heavy-attack controls before drawing final icons.
Exit: a screen-by-screen map of explore / fight / pray / downed / pause. - 02
Block out the 3D controls
Place simple meshes over the real game, using the existing renderer. Keep touch targets separate from visual size.
Exit: readable at 1600×900 and 1440×960, with no overlapping controls. - 03
Carve one material family
Build a small reusable stone-and-brass token kit. Shared geometry, atlas and minimal materials; no new environment art.
Exit: actual device measurements show the total scene still meets the project’s draw-call, triangle and frame-time gates. - 04
Wire truthful feedback
Connect health, cooldowns, infusion priority, shared resonance and prayer state. Clear duplicate results and expired buffs.
Exit: two-client scenario tests; no UI claims an action is ready when it is not. - 05
Play together, then judge
Record a real encounter and prayer on desktop and Pad 7. Check hands, sightlines, motion, latency and sound. Use the project’s fresh blind review gate.
Exit: evidence, user approval and an atomic implementation checkpoint.