Welcome back to Stranger Than Fiction – We dive deep into the internet to bring you all the strange, funny, and awesome things from Destiny’s community.
This week we’ll find out how pasta shaped the way we see Destiny, and check out a few of the cool projects players have been working on. Variks is calling, and we’d hate to keep him waiting, so let’s jump right in!
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Shaped by Spaghetti
Did a dinner experience shape the way we interact with the gear and vendors in Destiny? According to Bungie UI developer Dave Candland, it sort of did.
During a presentation at Game Developers Conference 2016, Dave recalled a lesson his wife taught him about cooking pasta. You can tell if spaghetti is cooked by throwing it at wall. If it sticks, it’s done! He applied this theory to his work developing UI’s for the Halo and Destiny franchises. When developing a new interface, he would try many different ideas, and the idea that stuck around throughout development would eventually amass to a finished product.
Dave presented on features in Destiny’s user interface, such as the free cursor we use to navigate menus, and how they went about designing the Director. Those who watch the video, which can be found here, are treated to some footage of the Destiny UI while it was still in early development.
As it turns out, pasta wasn’t the only thing that helped shaped Destiny’s UI. Candland explains the challenges of developing menu systems alongside gameplay, and how they design a system that makes it easy for “Todd the Fratboy” to find the content he wants to play.
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Little Lights
An often overlooked customization option for our guardians is the shell in which our ever present companion Nolan Bot calls home. While we often stick to just one skin for our friend, there are a large number of options for our ghost.
‘Ghosts of Destiny’ shows off all the ghost shells currently available in the game, as well as some that are unreleased. This slick animation is based off of illustrations by /u/Remouse69, and set to the original soundtrack Destiny.
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Animate the Arsenal
Be it against alien scum, or proving ourselves to Lord Shaxx in combat against other guardians, we all have a favorite weapon to use. The one that feels like home, and is in tune with our sense of destruction. Fernando Martinez chose honor his favorite weapons by creating this Gun Animation:
The video, which was a time consuming project for Fernando, features his 10 favorite exotic guns in the destiny arsenal. The animation shows weapons such as Fate of All Fools and Ice Breaker assembled together piece by piece. All the animation was done by Fernando, and was based on illistrations done by Tyler Zenk.
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Faction Rep
Are you the type of player that has lost faith in the Traveler? Maybe you think everything looks exponentially cooler in black, white, and various shades of gray? Dead Orbit is calling your name.
/u/Evil_Genius took his allegiance to Arach Jalaal and the Dead Orbit elite a step further when he gave his PS4 and controllers a custom skin based on the faction.
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So Close!
Picture this: You have a group of guardians keyed up. Your warlock jumps in the air, nova bomb in hand, ready to dispense some punishment on your enemies. You watch as your space magic floats across the room towards your unsuspecting opponents, and then…a giant door closes just in time to save their lives.
This is just one of the clips in /u/ShakuSwag’s newest montage, “Almost Legend.” Shaku and his buddies show us what it’s like be on the receiving end of a failed super, but also how glorious it can be to just down the super of others.
Do you have any awesome Destiny inspired projects to share? Are you more proficient at killing aliens than you are at your career? Maybe you just have a really strange story to tell about that time you explored the Dreadnaught. We want to hear about it! Leave a comment below, or Tweet us, and you could be featured the next Stranger Than Fiction!