Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Game Diary: Interface Quickie
Just a quick one for today about the interface's key design element.
The rotating interface we are using for the game is something I am very proud of, and I think alot of players will enjoy. The idea behind it was to have a single visual element that contained everything you needed to know about your units and allowed for direct selection of those units through the interface.
After a few different itterations the interface team came up with the following design:
The interface works in the following manner.
Inside of each totem's mouth is a portrait of a unit and the long moustache-like shape just above the mouth is the health and magic point bar for that unit. If you click on one of the portraits, the ring rotates and places that unit at the top of the ring. As you do this, the eye in the middle follows the selected portrait around.
Once the selected unit's totem is at the top of the ring, a totem pole grows out of its top. It looks like this:
The rotating interface we are using for the game is something I am very proud of, and I think alot of players will enjoy. The idea behind it was to have a single visual element that contained everything you needed to know about your units and allowed for direct selection of those units through the interface.
After a few different itterations the interface team came up with the following design:
The interface works in the following manner.
Inside of each totem's mouth is a portrait of a unit and the long moustache-like shape just above the mouth is the health and magic point bar for that unit. If you click on one of the portraits, the ring rotates and places that unit at the top of the ring. As you do this, the eye in the middle follows the selected portrait around.
Once the selected unit's totem is at the top of the ring, a totem pole grows out of its top. It looks like this:
Inside of each of these totem is an icon that corresponds to a special attack that unit can perform. The totem will only grow as tall as the number of special attacks a unit has, with 4 being the maximum.
For me this interface has everything a player needs to be able to quickly and easily control their squad, and with all of their unit's vital statistics available at a glance, no needless clicking will be required to find out if a unit is low on health or magic. Plus, the visual fits right into magical nature of the game's backstory.
If you have any comments or questions, hit the contact button to the left to shoot me an email!
The Interface Team for this project is Matthew Richard and Christina Ruiz, all the images belong to them.
