Icon Development Study

The context-sensitive icons originally started as abstract elements to convey the actions the species could take, ie. hide, eat, call, warn, drink, and attack. As the gameplay team narrowed the list of actions that were essential to the game's playability, the icons were changed to be more literal depictions of actions. Below is the development of each icon, showing only four of many stages it took our team to realize the final icons (largest icon in each set). All this work did not go to waste though: our icons are now used in the current model of the game.

The call and warn icons were difficult to develop. Taking an auditory action and making it graphic was a challenge.

Once we moved away from the abstract everyone developed an icon with a leaf in it for this icon. We quickly agreed this was an effective method of portraying this icon.


The final icon needed to use the water drop to indicate a drinking action. Although the previous icons display an animal drinking water from a water source, this method did not fit in with our final icon system.


The attack icon is the only icon that does not display our hopeful monster logo. As a group we decided that the claw was the most effective way to convey the action of attacking.


The warn icon is similar to the call icon. The red color of the arrows is meant to represent danger.


Like the eat leaf icon this icon needed the piece of meat in order to distinguish it from the eat leaf icon. We tried not to be too gory in creating the piece of meat.


The hide icon is the one icon that was somewhat successful in the first round of abstract icons. We chose to bring back the single blades of grass for the final icon.