Exuberant Video Game Menus Designed With da Vinci in Mind

There are days when life seems to consist of navigating app menus. Sometimes it is menus within menus, as when you scan a QR code in a restaurant and struggle through a strangely complex interface to order the burrito you knew you wanted when you walked in. Good menus are helpful portals. Bad menus are annoying obstacles.

The Japanese company Atlus makes video games that offer a third approach: menu as main event. When you open one of its menus, the options unfurl in a sensory feast of color, movement, sound and typography. In its role-playing game Metaphor: ReFantazio, an elaborate tale of political intrigue that was released on Friday, the letters in the primary menu fall into place like a crown on an image of the protagonist’s head, their sharp serifs set against a vibrant background of dancing splotches of paint.

Metaphor’s lead interface designer, Koji Ise, had never worked on a video game before and did not look to the medium for inspiration.

“I looked at music videos, I went to art exhibitions, I studied a lot of medieval paintings,” said Ise, who previously worked on websites, apps and advertisements. “This game has a very medieval vibe to it, so I looked at Leonardo da Vinci and thought about how he would design menus. I made sure to include his brushstroke style.”

The Japanese role-playing games that Atlus produces, including the Persona series, are part of a narrative-rich genre known for wildly imaginative scenarios and complex characters. But manifesting those narratives typically requires a lot of number crunching. Playing the games can resemble working in a spreadsheet.

“A J.R.P.G. is a menu game,” said Winnie Song, an assistant arts professor of game design at New York University’s Game Center. “That’s all you’re doing. Before a battle, you’re thinking about: ‘Which characters am I taking? What are they equipped with? Are they upgraded?’”