bewildered_angel
patreon
Battle UI Overhaul Mockup 1
🕑 Added 2020-04-01 21:46:16 +0000 UTCI want to start replacing the placeholder UI assets in the battle mode with something more final. My plan is to produce mockups, take feedback, and refine those mockups. When I'm satisfied with it, I'll implement it into the main game. This update will just be UI, I will be doing animations in a later update
This is the first mockup! Mostly I wanted to focus on streamlining it by removing all the extra detail and information. I also think it would be cool to have backgrounds for when you're in the level (but I'm not gonna make a different background for each level, I'll probably have a selection of 3-5 BGs that I'll recycle). I haven't yet checked the colors for colorblindness accessibility, but I'll be doing that as I refine the color scheme (kinda worried about those yellows!)
Here's some things I'm thinking about:
- How much more information can we remove from the UI while retaining the player's ability to make informed decisions?
- How can we make the game easier to understand for beginners, so we don't overload them with information?
- How can we communicate more information subtly with shapes and colors, than with attention-demanding text?
What you guys think about it? What would you like to see in the game's UI?
Comments
Bewildered Angel
Yeah I'm gonna have to try some different positions for it
Scryer
The timer and depleting circle are good ideas, it's just the positioning that's distracting. If it were in one of the corners (or switch where it and the KO are so the girls are only occasionally obstructed), I think it might work quite well.
Bewildered Angel
I think you're right, rearranging the icons so they're more consistent across adventurers and enemies is a good idea. I also don't like how all the icons have the same circular silhouette. I want to use their shape to communicate more information I think all these animation effects sound really cool, I like them a lot
Lady Alarune
Second, I feel like effects - minor, brief highlights or pulses of color - can do an immense amount in making something like this easy to absorb. A very small flash on a character, just enough to slightly draw attention when she comes off cooldown strikes me as one of the most obvious additions here. Another possibility is in the capacity bar itself. Removing numbers from it makes the bar a much cleaner UI element, but as people have noted, those numbers currently serve one fairly significant purpose - they provide info to help keep you from KOing. I might suggest some indication on the bar, perhaps a reddish glow around the edge of it, if you are currently hovering an attack which would KO the character. It's still something to be mindful of during the frenzy of clicking ETD can devolve into, but it makes it more of an observational test than a quickmaths one.
Lady Alarune
First off, a new player / learning concern - in the current mockup, the Favorite Food tokens have a very similar visual profile to the 'Damage Type' tokens (especially given that the symbols on the latter are partially obscured by numbers). What's more, the enemy damage type bubbles occupy the same slot on their square as favorite foods do on the party members'. To use the above image as an example, I feel like it is a pretty intuitive conclusion to draw that you want to attack those bacon enemies. Yellow to yellow, almost the same shade, in the same spot - even without any colorblindness concerns, that's darn ambiguous. I might suggest making the 'favorite flavor' token a different shape (possibly a diamond?), and 'Enemy Attack' symbols of yet another shape (or possibly an inverted color scheme of block dots with a colored damage type symbol, to indicate the hostile nature of those icons).
Lady Alarune
This is interesting! It definitely has a lot more aesthetic appeal than the current version of the UI. A few thoughts, arranged into replies for organizational purposes (and because typing multiple paragraphs in patreon comments is always mildly annoying).
Bewildered Angel
Yeah, I'd like to try other positions for it. In the mockup it makes it very clear the warrior is not currently interactable, but I don't like how it covers her either
Bewildered Angel
Yeah I wasn't 100% sure I could get away with removing the capacity numbers. But I figured for the first mockup I'd see just how far I could go with removing information. I'm thinking I'll bring it back, but only show it on the adventurer you have selected
snilloc422
I like most of the changes, the only problem that I see is the wait timer overlayed on character. The character pictures are what im here for, covering them up would take away from the experience for me.
Biff the understudy
Still early, but I think the max capacity of each character should remain visible via raw numbers. Being able to quickly glance at enemy hp and your characters max capacity is pretty important to knowing exactly what you can and can't afford to attack, as knockouts are basically auto failures on most levels for getting good times.
