A major mechanic in the game is how weight affects the player vehicle. The vehicle can drive, fly and swim above and below the water, however if the vehicle weight goes above a certain threshold, the vehicle's capabilities are reduced. If the vehicle is overweight, the vehicle can no longer fly and the vehicle sinks to the ocean bottom. At the next threshold, the vehicle is completely immobile. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To communicate this, I designed a weight bar with a line indicating where the threshold to be overweight would be and the full bar would put the vehicle in its immobile state. The feedback I got was that it was somewhat hard to read and it was unclear what the white line meant.

 

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It was refactored to be a bar that fills twice. The first fill gets the vehicle to be overweight and when it fills again the vehicle is in an immobile state.

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Playtest feedback has shown widespread acceptance of the bar. There is a problem with first time players not realizing when it crosses the threshold to being overweight, so something to draw the eye to the bar is needed. I am also concerned about localization and there are some concepts for an icon-based weight system. Look for it in future game updates.