Dead State Design Update, Screenshots
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The layout of your main GUI is of critical importance. A good GUI isn't going to save a bad game, but a bad GUI can cripple a good game. The GUI needs to do the following:Looking very, very good. The noise meter is perfect.
-Draw attention to important information.
-Be laid out in a sensible way to allow players to jump in (*it helps if it borrows from other games in the genre for familiarity).
-Allow access to important actions and sub-menus without relying exclusively on hotkeys.
-Not be too noisy or take up too much screen real estate.
-Relay tactically sensitive information in an immediate and logical way.
-Have a consistent theme.
Once the designers finish the GUI mockup, we turn it over to art. In our pipeline, we have recently added a very talented GUI artist to work on the many different screens we have. Oscar (our lead artist) and both Annie and I have given several rounds feedback to get the GUI just right to balance design, functionality, and artistic/readability needs of the GUI. Additional testing of the GUI will tell us if we need to make any further changes.
You'll notice a couple of things.
-Our art style for the GUIs reinforces the (scavenged materials) aspect of the game.
-The Noise Meter at the top tells you how noisy you are.
-The portraits tell you who's with you, what their health is at, and if they have any statuses.
-Your currently equipped weapons and hot slot items (medical kit and grenade shown), remaining AP, HP, and any statuses you may have.
-A text box overlay on the left for messages.
-A list of sub-menu icons on the right (inventory, group commands, map, and main menu).
-We reduced it as much as possible to not interfere with gameplay.
