Designing UI
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This last week I’ve been working on our games UI layout and design. This has proven to be a real challenge. While our game isn’t a true real time strategy game it does have elements from one, this lead to there being a lot of information that need to be shown on screen. Below is a screenshot from our prototype.
This is the current layout. The left display features information about the currently selected settler. A portrait, health and hunger bar, two small circular emblems displaying the current settlers loadout (the explanation of this comes later) and a blank square where the settlers inventory is later going to be displayed. To the right there is a display showing information concerning the settlement, så the total amount of different resources as well as the total amount of settlers and buildings. Above each of these displays there are a number of smaller buttons, these will display information on the middle bar, which is currently just a brown square. Going from left to right, the first button will display info about all settler and allow the player to switch in between them. The second button will display the selected settlers current skills and will also allow the player to switch between settlers. The third which looks like a crossed hammer and saw will display the construction menu and allow the player to place buildings. The fourth button will allow the player to see any event that has taken place in the recent time, this will be left blank for the time being as we don’t prioritize that feature. A lastly the button that will access the pause menu. Some decisions made according to design has been made this week as well. The biggest among them is concerning how the player experiences the jungle. The allow for a somewhat more strategy the player will decide what settlers do what before sending them down into the jungle. We call this the loadout system and it works by having the player decide what each settler will equip in their hands and on their body. Currently we have five options to choose from. For the hands each settler can be equipped with either gathering tools or a weapon each of these making them better at, of course, gathering and combat. For the body each settler can choose between a backpack, armor or a heal kit. The backpack allows a settler to carry more resources, the armor makes it easier for the settler to survive and the heal kit allow a settler to heal another for an increased amount. This system will allow the player multiple different ways to tackle the jungle and we think it will improve the players experience with it.  |
