The first thing that you will do in SteamWorld Heist after the intro cinematic is to create a new profile. As soon as you hit the New Game button, the select difficulty options come up. Notice how they snap up into place; this is further reinforced with an apt audio cue. There are a lot of things going on here! The two horizontal lines, one below the scene title and one above the controller instruction at the bottom, open up as the rest of the interface elements ease up into place. What I’ve noticed throughout the game is how its information boxes have a small bounce as they come into place; you can also see a small arrow scale into place at the bottom of the information box and pointing downwards. The scene itself is very static after it comes into place; focusing on the buttons changes the text in the information box and there are no more animations to distract the user from the important information displayed there. Exiting the menu, cuts back hard to the previous scene without any fanfare.

This single scene transition with all its energy is what partly prompted me to write this blog 🙂