Animal Crossing: New Horizons

A small ring of chosen favourites sits beside the full inventory grid. Animal Crossing: New Horizons pairs a full inventory grid with an eight-slot easy-access tool ring of favourites the player picks. A radial menu suits a small, curated set of quick picks: it works with 16 items but not 116.

Mark Brown copied the ring as a favourites option when redesigning Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom's menu, then dropped it because leaning on a few favourites cut against that game's goal of creative problem solving. "It doesn't work quite so nicely with 116 echoes."

Players buy the tool wheel, so they set when the UI grows. The tool wheel is bought in the shop rather than shown from the start, so the player sets the pace at which the interface gets more complex.

Mini Metro and Total War: Troy follow the same pattern of revealing interface elements gradually, since a complex UI is one of the most overwhelming things for a new player.

Risky turnip trading turns a money exploit into a decision. Players buy turnips on Sunday at a set price, and the Nook shop's buying price changes every day. Lucky players profit hugely; if the price never rises, the turnips drain from the inventory the next weekend.

The miniature stock market limits the exploit and adds choices about how much to risk. "How much am I willing to risk? What's the right reward?"

No options menu and sound-only cues shut some players out. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has no options menu at all, and some information, such as certain bugs, is signalled only by sound with no visual cue, so deaf and hard of hearing players miss it.

Mark Brown found that all eight Japanese games he looked at in 2020 failed in some big way, with none offering subtitle options. Games like Ghost of Tsushima and Watch Dogs: Legion add visual markers for sound-based information.

Nintendo lowered egg drop rates after players complained. Players complained about endless eggs during the egg event, and Nintendo tweaked the drop rate in response.