User Interface & Experience

Tencent filed 5 patent applications addressing precision and awareness challenges in competitive multiplayer games. One automates targeting during flash-skill combos in MOBA titles, removing the need for players to manually aim while executing complex movement-ability sequences. Another displays multiple simultaneous camera perspectives for a single character, letting players view their avatar from different angles without repositioning the camera or consulting a minimap. A third uses voiceprint biometric data to personalize cooperative action requests between teammates, identifying players and tailoring responses without requiring live voice chat. The company also described a passing system for mobile basketball games that generates thumb-accessible buttons near the player's active control area, each linked to a specific teammate through on-screen visual markers to eliminate targeting confusion when players cluster together. The fifth application covers simultaneous control of both a drone and a ground character in battle royale games, with distinct UI elements allowing independent piloting of both entities at once.

Hangzhou Pawprint Interactive Entertainment Technology Co. received 2 patents that reimagine the relationship between players and virtual pets. The first lets players fuse with their pet companion, merging into a single entity that grants the player direct access to the pet's abilities in first-person perspective rather than observing the pet act as a separate character. The second inverts traditional pet ownership by transforming the player character into a pet, enabling them to interact with other in-game pets as peers of the same species instead of maintaining an owner-companion dynamic.

NetEase filed 2 applications focused on information delivery in competitive multiplayer scenarios. One creates a multi-viewport spectator interface that automatically appears when players are eliminated from asymmetrical battles, showing live feeds of multiple surviving teammates alongside static result cards in a unified screen. The other describes a detection mechanic where players aim a camera-like viewfinder at hidden enemies to generate thermal information that marks the target with a persistent status effect, combining camera UI conventions with positional scouting gameplay.

Skydance Silicon Valley received 2 patents for a timeline navigation system that treats gameplay like editable media. Players can scrub forward through unplayed content to skip difficult sections, with machine learning detecting frustration and suggesting jump points while preview keyframes avoid spoiling narrative moments. The system adjusts scrubbing granularity based on context, providing fine control during cutscenes while limiting gameplay jumps to predetermined story checkpoints, and supports both forward and backward navigation through the entire play session.

Yidian Lingxi Information Technology (Guangzhou) Co. filed 2 applications addressing coordination in team-based RPG combat. One visualizes enemy pursuit paths in real-time, displaying movement routes and off-screen indicators with distance markers so players can track threats they cannot directly see, maintaining continuity even when enemies follow across scene transitions. The other combines peer voting to select combat leaders with automated route assignment, distributing team members across optimized attack paths without requiring manual formation setup or top-down strategic decisions from a single commander.

Sony received 2 patents addressing player support and social awareness. The first analyzes gameplay performance to detect struggling players, then generates personalized practice scenarios that mirror the difficulty of actual game sections while displaying synchronized visual controller guides showing precise input timing without spoiling upcoming content. The second manages interruptions for VR players by analyzing gameplay intensity to signal availability to others in the physical space, queuing incoming messages and determining optimal delivery timing based on both game context and message priority, with voice-to-text conversion for hands-free communication.

Supercell filed 1 application for a multi-touch resource deployment system that places items at multiple screen locations simultaneously through single gestures, with deployment speed and quantity determined by touch pressure and swipe velocity rather than requiring repeated individual taps for each placement in strategy game interfaces.

Cygames received 1 patent for a server-driven notification system that pushes idle game reward milestones directly to smartphone lock screens based on server-side schedules, delivering time-based progress updates without requiring players to open the application or poll for status changes.

NCSoft filed 2 applications for streamlining player actions in PC games. One creates configurable auto-execution timers for action bar slots, letting players set periodic cooldowns that automatically trigger skill and item use on repeating schedules, with merge slots grouping multiple functions into coordinated automation sequences. The other maps 2D pan gestures on a sphere-shaped button to 3D directional scanning vectors, translating touch input into spatial targeting with visual feedback including overlays, directional indicators, and scan-location icons that update based on gesture duration.

Dugan Health received 1 patent for a multiplayer fitness application that converts real-world exercise and GPS location data into game controller inputs, where one player's physical activity directly affects other players' avatar performance and enables location-based competition among connected users.