June 13th, 2009
The function keys are used to choose which of the three teams the player wants to join. The order of the function keys on the keyboard are F5, F6 and F7, but in the menu they’re ordered: F6, F7 and F5!
This is not a show stopping bug or broken feature, but it feels bad for the players who use keyboard shortcuts and it’s unnecessary.
The correct order should be:
- (F5) – Strogg
- (F6) – Spectator
- (F7) – GDF
Fix the little things! Navigating a lot of interface problems, or even a few, can feel like a real grind. This diminishes the player’s view of your game and brand.
Note: I’ve only addressed the order of the keyboard shortcuts, the visual order of the team icons may also be improved by displaying the two player classes first, followed by the spectator mode. (Possibly GDF should come before Strogg as that’s alphabetical order.)
Tags: Quake Wars Enemy Territory
Posted in Game Interface Design | No Comments »
November 19th, 2008
Summary:
When indicating a danger mode use an obvious visual indicator, a color choice may not convey the intended meaning.
Tribly: Art of Theft game screen shot
Problem: Icon color changes to indicate one of two modes, this forces the player to think about which color indicates which mode.
Eye icons
Solution 1: Indicate when the player is in danger of being seen, this is the only mode that is important to the player, no other indication is necessary.
Solution - only show the icon when the player needs to be alerted
Solution 2: Coming soon… This small improvement is part of a series of design iterations I’ll be suggesting to improve the player’s experience in Tribly.
Tribly: The Art Of Theft was designed by Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw, if you haven’t already heard of Ben, he creates the fabulous Zero Punctuation video game reviews.
Ben’s website is fullyramblomatic.com
Posted in Game Interface Design | No Comments »
January 20th, 2008
Update! This problem has been addressed in the new version of Aquaria 1.1.0. A small glow effect now indicates which menu icon is selected. A definite improvement.
Menu button highlighted with a soft glow effect
Summary:
When designing menu screens, use visual hints to indicate the current menu.
Recipe screen from Aquaria
Problem: When searching for a menu button it’s easy to choose the same menu button twice, the button currently selected is not clearly indicated.
Aquaria uses a tab like menu system divided into four menu screens, each screen is similar to the others.
Menu screens
Solution: When the gamer clicks on the menu button, display a visual hint on or beside it. The hint remains visible until a different menu button is clicked on.
Menu buttons without visual hint
Menu buttons with visual hint to indicate selected menu
Menu screens with visual hints
Aquaria is a beautiful game with beautiful artwork, however, beautiful artwork will not guarantee that a game feels beautiful to play. A menu system that is unpredictable removes that happy shiny feeling a gamer gets when playing a game.
Tags: Aquaria
Posted in Game Interface Design | 1 Comment »
