Designing a modular shop architecture that integrates smoothly with live ops and special offers, delivering a clean storefront with clear purchase flows.
Overview
The Shark Select screen in Hungry Shark Primal is a core component of game progression and player engagement, integral to the collector’s joy of acquiring new characters. From a game design perspective, this feature was crafted to effectively capture the thrill of character collection. This case study highlights the strategy and thought process behind designing this crucial game element.
Some Heuristics to operate by
How should Character Select interfaces feel?
Visibility of System Status
Your unlocks and choices need to be crystal clear - but more than that, each locked character should make players think "I can't wait to try that one." Show off what makes each character special through their preview state.
Consistency & Efficiency
Designing the layout so players naturally develop muscle memory - whether it's swiping through sharks left-to-right, or having upgrades always appear in the same spot. Once they get the pattern, they'll flow through the interface faster and faster.
User Control and Freedom
Your unlocks and choices need to be crystal clear - but more than that, each locked character should make players think "I can't wait to try that one." Show off what makes each character special through their preview state.
Scalable Structure
Designing the UI architecture to gracefully handle both current and future needs - from language localization to varying text lengths, different screen sizes, and an ever-growing character roster. Build reusable components that maintain visual hierarchy no matter how much content you add.
Early Concepts
Character Selection Format Concepts
Horizontally scrolling UI
The Hungry Shark Primal character select screen uses horizontal scrolling to display sharks and pets with their visuals, rarity, and action buttons for equipping, upgrading, and skin selection. Tab navigation enables simple collection management.
Pick 3 System
In this version, players select a tag team of three sharks for battle, allowing character switches mid-game for added versatility and dynamism. (Partly inspired by GTA V) However, this idea was shelved due to its complexity, as we targeted a more casual audience.
Standard grid system
Winner
We opted for a more simple approach for the character UI selection. The single shark selector with a simple grid, and the character model preview on the right. The UI structure makes the meta-layers more accessible to the player, placing them in a convenient thumb position.
Fossils System
How do we make Character Unlocks more compelling?
Together with game designers, we designed the Shark Unlock to be maximally satisfying, recognizing its crucial role in the meta-game loop. We decided on a character shard based unlock system (Fossils) to modulate game progression, a balancing act to prevent rapid unlocks and an unsustainable game economy. This also grants dev and art teams time to sustainably enrich the game content beyond releases.
Players earn ‘Character Shards’ as Fossils in Hungry Shark Primal. To unlock a shark, players must collect a specific number of unique bones for that shark. For instance, unlocking the Dunk Shark requires collecting all 7 of its unique “Dunk Bones.” Once all bones are collected, the Fossil transforms into the shark.
Fossils System
Final Design
