This is Rowan Ryder again from Torus Games, here with Tyson Hollitt, who’s in charge of the User Interface design for Unsung Story. Today, we’re going to talk about UI design; where it’s currently at, how we got there and how we plan to proceed.
UI Pre-Production
At the beginning of any project, it’s important for the UI Designer to collect reference material; trends from games in the same or similar genres, trends from the industry at large and even examples of UI from software outside of games. We look at what’s working and what isn’t, then combine that knowledge with what we understand to be unique about our game.
In this case, we need to break down and understand what players expect from the UI; each units vital stats, their equipment, the turn order, where each unit can move, etc. It’s also important to lean on what the player already understands — players are constantly learning while they play a game (any game), and it’s important that the interface doesn’t ignore this fact.
Finally, pre-production involves listing out what information will need to be exposed to the player through the interface. It’s extremely helpful for the dev team to have access to this information in an easily digestible form so we don’t overlook anything as we move forward.
It’s very common for developers take information for granted when they live and breathe a game for months, but as soon as a new player gets their hands on the game they’ll find it bafflingly vague and obscure. As such, we rely on an itemized list of information to make sure we’re on track (as well as regular play testing!).
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