Using RGB highlights to enhance the player experience

RGB lighting has become a mainstay of gaming accessories in the past couple of years. Apart from giving our peripherals and PC components a sleek, modern look, it can also serve an informative purpose. Different colors can give us a quick update on the state of our machine or the running software. It gives the developers the ability to convey information at just a glance, increasing accessibility and ease of use - some of the most important aspects of good software. There are various companies that produce RGB-enabled gear for gaming enthusiasts all over the world. Most of those companies, such as Razer, Asus or Logitech, use their own APIs to control these features. They might offer slightly different approaches to handling the communication between hardware and software, so extensive, hands-on testing is key. We decided to implement RGB highlights in The Riftbreaker and X-Morph: Defense and would like to share our experience with you.

The main menu ambient highlight for our previous game, X-Morph: Defense. We have already had some experience with the dynamic RGB highlights while working on X-Morph: Defense. We were one of the first companies to add the mouse and keyboard support for the Xbox One. Working with the Razer Turret set gave us an option to dip our toes into the world of RGB illumination. In X-Morph, we used the keyboard highlights to show the players which keys could be pressed in order to perform a game action. The row of function keys represented the health of the player’s ship and core. The keys that were not relevant to the gameplay received a blue, ambient highlight. While not overly spectacular or flashy, we thought it would serve the game best.

The action keys receive their own highlights in distinct colors, while the rest of the keyboard informs the player about the status of the ship and the core.

Once we take the controls away from the player, we can go a little more crazy with the RGB effects. The desire to keep the highlights functional limits our options, but we did go a little crazy at times when we took the controls away from the player. During the cutscenes, we gave our camera shake system a degree of control over the RGB highlights. This way, we managed to synchronize the camera shake with the behavior of the LEDs. The whole keyboard could flash white, yellow, and red according to what was currently going on in the game. It was a great feature for increasing the immersion and expanding the experience of playing the game beyond the screen. Our next project, The Riftbreaker, follows that exact philosophy. The Riftbreaker is a mix of various genres - it is a base-building game with elements of exploration, survival and hack and slash. The player takes the role of the titular Riftbreaker, an elite scientist/commando, whose task is to prepare a distant alien planet for human colonization. The game runs on our proprietary game engine, the Schmetterling 2.0. It means that we handle the integration with peripherals by ourselves. In order to get the most out of RGB illumination, we thoroughly analyzed the API of our keyboard, looking for ways of implementation that would work well together with our design goals for the game. The fact that the API allows us to either control the illumination of individual LEDs or virtualized keys gives us everything we need in order to design a system that will be both functional and stylish. Bearing