So I've just watched through the Riftborn reveal stream on twitch and I was pleasantly surprised by the gameplay demonstrated, but there was one thing that seemed just lazy and kindda contrary to the GUI principles that we all love Amplitude for. that being clean, simple and elegant.


That thing was the swirling clouds of coloured light being used to indicate a system was being sped up or slowed down by the riftborn.




Now,  kudos for picking blue and red to represent blue and redshifting respectively (totaly the intention right team?). But this isn't a clean, sharp or really elegant piece of GUI right here. yes the players are clear on what is going on but this is rather obtrusive (who owns these systems?) and a bit of an eyesore. So I'd like to suggest another concept for a time dilation visual effect which with a bit of sci-fi smudges would kind of make sense, and I'm sure would look more elegant and in line with the design philosophy.


Let me explain the science behind my idea. Firstly time manipulation like in the game is a physical impossibility in our universe, there's no feasible way this could happen without black holes, so not nice places to live. What's implied in the game is a more gentle form of time manipulation, that where a bubble of time moves at one time frame whereas the rest of the universe moves at another. This leads to some issues with light and colour that I won't go into the details of to much because my idea circumvents this for the sake of a nice GUI but the result would look something like this interesting MIT submission from a few years ago, http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/ 

(we don't want this)


My idea is that light travels and is perceived normally on both sides of the limit between the bubble and normal space (this is a physical impossibility and my sci-fi smudge) basicly ignoring refraction as set out in descartes/Snells law (imagine the refraction index n being equal in both environments.) The result would be depending on whether or not the system was sped up or slowed down a snow globe like bubble which was brighter or darker inside.


(assume that theta 1 = theta 2 and C = C' in both frames)


From the outside a sped up systems light would reach the limit and then be released at x times normal amount (x being the time multiplier) but because the bubbles limit tends towards 0 the limit will be barely visible and the system would appear saturated with light. 


For example a system sped up by 5 times would be 5 times brighter and may even appear saturated from the outside. A system slowed by 5 times would appear 5 times darker from the outside.


You'll notice I keep saying from the outside, and there's a reason for that. From the inside the opposite would be true. In a sped up system the night sky (space background image) would appear darker maybe the stars would pulse in light, something as dark as below. Whereas in a slowed down system the sky would light up to be the greatest light show of all time (pun intended). Something as beautiful as the composite Plank image below.

 


The other cool thing about this idea is the planets in both the galaxy view and the star system management view would look just like normal, not obscuring or subtracting from those wonderful planet textures. 


I've mocked some examples of my idea, bearing in mind this is really rough and I am in no way an artist or digital designer. But hopefully it kindda conveys my idea. TheOrder of images first is sped up then slowed down systems.


(I had to up the contrast on the star management view because I have no skills to make the difference visible)



Now a response to this would be that it's not really intuitive for new players, but I don't think a swirling cloud of energy is all that intuitive either to demonstrate time effects, and really a icon should also be added of a mini clock with a + or - next to the system name.


What about the transition between the two? we have those really nice (quick) transitions from one view to the other. I think at one point the camera would have to cross the bubble but this should be fairly seemless but maybe if you wanted to emphasize the transition you could rapidly blueshift the image then rapidly redshift the image  before returning it to normal it would have to be quick though so as not to cause to much disturbance making it clear this is the limit of the time bubble you're crossing.


Anyway that's my idea it took up the entirety of my commute to work. Thank you for reading.


PS: This rift thing in the reveal trailer is 100% an anomaly and should be visible on the planet now that we're getting graphical representations of anomalies on worlds. I have some other thoughts on the Riftborn which I might write up for now suffice to say I strongly believe this faction should have the roving clans pacifism ability from Endless Legend.