Kingmaker - Retrospective on Character Sheet Interface Design

Owlcat have posted a retrospective on their character sheet interface design in Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

The Search for a Layout

Breaking down information into logical sections provides a good starting point for design, but it does not go far enough. It’s difficult to create something without limitations. Our brains rely on systems that help us categorize and understand our surrounding environment. Without a system, things become more difficult. In addition to the difficulty of presenting information in a logical manner, we were also limited by the three-column system from the pre-existing inventory interface. Now, our next step was to combine information from different sections into a cohesive visual presentation. From our perspective, my colleagues and I felt that some of these sections worked well together in the layouts, and some of them were less successful. The rejected versions have all been archived, so I had to go pull them specifically for this article.

Below are some of the early screen layout experiments. All of them try to squeeze the entire character sheet onto the screen at one time. Some sections, such as attack, defense, and skills, do not change much, but others, such as abilities and effects, vary significantly in their placement and presentation.

Moreover, I also greatly underestimated the number of ability options, and often tried to fit them into very small sections. At the same time, by the way, we were trying to find a way to place effects in the left third of the screen, so they would be visible on the inventory screen as well. One interesting moment occurred when discussing the effects section. Some of our colleagues with extensive knowledge of the rules, differentiated between when a character’s state is caused by spell effects (either positive or negative), and when it is caused by a condition (fatigued, blinded, etc.). This is written in the rules, and integrates well into the mechanics of the game. These were all viewable in the interface as icons, with text that changed the values of other stats. This can be seen directly within the game code, where the interface code leads to a common denominator of a mechanical nature.

Portraits from Baldur's Gate are used in the layouts.

[...]

Thanks purpleblob!