Round 2: Evangelion, made by High Water

Studio Hitstop · UI lane · Readout · 2026-09-28

Jonas's review of round 1: Persona 5 was too literal; Evangelion fits the setting; Contract Optics fits High Water. So the core of every direction here is Eva's screen language (emergency states, heavy condensed serif, hexagon grids, warning banners, big numerals, bilingual labels, pattern alerts), as if High Water's own defence-tech design team had shipped it: a wordmark, contract IDs, serial stencils, clinical discipline. Three explorations on top of that core, all live over the same arena frames. Round 1's decisions carry over unchanged: the system-integrity meter, the reticle rules, no damage numbers, the hybrid resolution (round 1 resolution test, not archived).

The shared core

Eva grammar

Compressed Mincho for alerts and title cards (Shippori Mincho B1 ExtraBold at 72 % width, standing in for Matisse EB); huge condensed numerals (Barlow Condensed 800); hexagon grids for the PV-NET integrity meter; hazard-tape EMERGENCY bands at CRITICAL; bilingual JP/EN on every label that matters; the wave banner is a pattern alert: 警告 · PATTERN CYAN · HIGH WATER.

High Water discipline

The HUD is a product: a wave-mark wordmark, the operator serial (HW-07 · SN 4F-2210), the contract ID (CTR-2070-T3) and a fixed grid of panels that never moves. Only the enemy's system alarms and breaks; High Water's own readouts stay calm. That contrast is where "Destroy the System" shows.

Persona's lessons, not its look

Kept from round 1's Cut-Up: callouts slam in with overshoot and leave fast; the combo numeral kicks on every hit; the wave clear opens with one confident full-screen wipe; everything big happens on a hard cut. Dropped: the ransom letters, the tilt, the red-black-white palette.

Direction A

Section Alert: Ghost in the Shell × Evangelion

IdeaThe HUD is the enforcer's visor optics. Section 9's cyberbrain layer (curved vignette, scan texture, data columns, a thermoptic shimmer sweeping the visor on damage and rank changes) carries Eva's alert grammar.

PaletteCyan #5FF0FF for everything High Water; Eva orange #FF8A00 when PV-NET degrades; red #FF2A3A only at CRITICAL/BREACH.

IntegrityPV-NET drawn as a hex network: cells linked by lines, going dark as you break it, the link lines dropping out with them.

From PersonaCallouts slam in (scale overshoot); a black-and-cyan diagonal wipe opens the wave clear; the combo numeral kicks on hits.

RiskThe optics layer (vignette, scanlines, shimmer) is the costly part on the Web; it belongs in the 640 × 360 world viewport, not at native resolution.

Direction B

Incident Protocol: Death Stranding × High Water (Eva alerts)

IdeaThe most corporate one. BRIDGES-style branded logistics UI turned military: bone-white header slabs, hairline rules, mono field labels, the held object as cargo. Eva's warnings become the company's incident protocol: hazard tape, severity levels, an incident log that writes itself as you fight.

PaletteBone white #ECEAE4 on graphite; cyan only for live instrument values; safety orange #FF7A00 for incidents; red #E0252B at severity 4–5.

IntegrityA hex site map of PV-NET sectors; the rank is an incident severity (SEV 1–5). The wave clear is a signed contract milestone, stamped.

From PersonaA bone-white wipe, the report card dropping in with overshoot, the stamp slamming at 3× scale, callouts that punch in.

RiskLight slabs are loud over a dark arena; they must stay small. The log is flavour and should cut first.

Direction C

Replicant Amber: Blade Runner × Evangelion

IdeaAnalogue futurism: amber phosphor on a warm black CRT, teal secondaries, rain and neon bleed across the glass, a Voight-Kampff scope as the integrity meter, and Eva's big compressed type and alerts on top.

PaletteAmber #FFB347 with glow, teal #39D0C0 for live values, red #FF3B2F for alerts. It departs furthest from High Water's cyan.

TypeShare Tech Mono (OFL) for the CRT readouts, plus the shared Mincho and Barlow Condensed.

From PersonaThe wipe, then an "enhance" box zooming out from the centre before the title card switches on like a CRT; callouts overshoot.

RiskThe strongest mood but the weakest fit for a clinical PMC, and the rain and CRT over the whole screen add fill cost and haze over the play field.

New references (links only)

ANIME · CORE

Neon Genesis Evangelion: type and NERV screens

Fonts In Use · HKU Art History · Matisse EB (commercial)

Take: compressed title cards, hex status grids, bilingual warnings, pattern alerts. The core of all three.

Ghost in the Shell (1995), SAC; Territory Studio's GitS (2017)

Wikipedia · SAC · Territory Studio

Take: the optics layer: visor curvature, data as texture, thermoptic shimmer, network views of a system being entered.

Death Stranding

Interface In Game

Take: branded logistics UI: cargo with weight and condition, header slabs, delivery reports as documents.

Anduril Lattice · Palantir Gotham

Lattice · Gotham

Take: defence-tech sobriety, track IDs, incident and object framing: High Water's house style.

Blade Runner (1982), Blade Runner 2049

Wikipedia · 2049 · Art of the Title

Take: the Voight-Kampff machine's analogue readouts, the ESPER "enhance", amber and teal light, rain and neon bleed.

Territory Studio: Blade Runner 2049 screen graphics

territorystudio.com

Take: analogue-futurist interfaces with physical texture; how CRT artefacts can stay legible.

Recommendation

Build A (Section Alert), with B's incident framing for the wave clear and the title sheet. A is the only one where the Eva alarms read as the enemy's system failing inside High Water's own optics, which is exactly the theme; it keeps the play field darkest and clearest, and its cyan stays High Water's colour from the character art. B's signed contract milestone ("SYSTEM BREACHED" stamped over a report) is the best wave-clear payoff on the board and fits A's world as its end-of-wave paperwork. C has the strongest mood but pulls the game towards noir detective rather than a PMC wrecking a tower; keep its CRT "enhance" as a possible boss intro.

Open questions for Jonas: (1) A + B's clear and title, as above? (2) How much Japanese: labels on every panel as mocked, or only on alerts and title cards? Recommended: alerts, rank words and title cards only, which also keeps the subset font small.

Board by Readout (Studio Hitstop). Plates: engine renders from tools/ui_shots.tscn on ui-lab. Fonts from Google Fonts (SIL OFL 1.1). No AI imagery.