Hot answers tagged games
43
You could use several cues to reinforce each other:
Background getting slightly darker at more difficulty.
Use a star - which is a positive symbol, whatever the difficulty.
Use more of the stars for more difficult levels
Use colours for the stars.
For example:
24
From a strictly usability perspective (a subset of all that’s UX), here’re some lessons and advice I’ve gathered:
Games should be about mastering the game-world, not mastering the user interface. “My hope is that the designers of these games learn from the mistakes of the GUI, rather than reinventing that old wheel and inheriting all its problems.”
More ...
16
I would recommend going with a combination of pictures and colors to convey information as studies have shown that children relate to bright and vivid colors better as mentioned in this article
Ever notice that toys, books and children's web sites usually contain
large blocks of bright, primary colors? Young children prefer these
colors and respond ...
12
This book has been brought up many times on this site:
http://artofgamedesign.com/
Megasweet.
Games are unique from a UX perspective because you have (almost) limitless control over the context you create for the game-player. You have their undivided attention. They want to be lost in your world.
Contrast that with ho-hum ;) UX the rest of us practice. ...
10
You can have the players click the cards themselves, and then you use a visual indication on the card itself, preferably an indication that suggests that the card will be passed, e.g. an arrow.
As to which cards to select - I'd let them select the cards to pass. They are selecting items and then performing an action, so it makes more sense to select the ...
10
There are some comics stereotypes that are related to the knowledge - you can use them - for example - little girl in pink dress with flowers (easy), then girl with schoolbag - medium and girl with glasses, pile of books and pencil behind the ear - hard.
The same icons can be created with boy faces - depending on the player gender, or with two kids on the ...
10
This may be a bit wacky but I would use a child pushing a rock up a hill image / cartoon.
Something like this:
I'd keep making the rock bigger for the harder versions. I felt that's one image which is clear and universally accessible.
Alternatively, something like the image below:
9
Casino Interfaces
I'm not in the casino industry anymore, so I'd like to share a few tips. Enjoy.
Casino games are a unique subset of the game industry. The audience for these games may be older. They want graphics that look and behave like classic games.
The interface must easily allow for purchasing credits
Since casino gaming are constantly monetized, ...
7
How about each button showing a different number of daggers/guns/bombs? One for easy, two for medium and three for hard. The actual weapon/icon would depend on the context of your game.
Or, if you don't have a lot of room have a different weapon/icon for each level.
Obviously this only works if your game involves combat of some kind.
As always icons don't ...
7
Remember when writing user-interfaces for children that you'll be dealing with a large amount of varied backgrounds and abilities.
remember that some of your users will be color-blind. As such, don't simply rely on colors to differentiate.
Take into account the age-level of the kids who will be using your application. For example, numbers are great when it ...
6
The standard has usually been the head of the player character. This shows a clear relationship between the lives and the character; it's almost as if you literally have 5 of that character, and then when a character dies you now have 4. Often in shooters the lives icon will show a little version of your ship, for the same reason.
Hearts are a common more ...
6
I've seen a similar approach used successfully in pointer and stylus based input systems. It's called a "Pie Menu" or "Radial Menu".
Radial Menus are a bit uncommon but they have very good Fitt's Law results Here's a great article about designing pie menus. Radial menus don't always have the "drag" control like your proposed menu, but it's been shown to be ...
5
A cartoon picture of a kid riding a bike. On level ground for the easiest level, and then 2 or 3 increasing grades to indicate more difficult levels.
Alternatively, 3 or 4 different bicycles. Tricycle for easiest, then a training wheel bicycle, older child's bicycle, then racing or mountain bike.
4
If all players are viewing a split screen, I would just use a standard progress bar in each player's area of the screen. It's a commonly used convention and people understand it.
The second method is neat, but it could be confusing. The metaphor of "filling something up" applies to progress bars. But does it apply to your second image? The image implies ...
4
Try for a book on it ?
returns having found the books...
I bought these two when I wanted some background on this ( not necessarily the best - but the best I could see in the store):
Game Development Essentials: Game Interface Design
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Development-Essentials-Interface-Design/dp/1418016209/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Not a vast amount ...
4
Wowpedia has a page about the Auction House with a section dedicated to describing its UI.
If you know the name of what you wish to find, simply enter all or part of it in the Name field, and click the Search button on the upper right, and the UI will return all the items that match the string you entered. Otherwise, you can search by category: on the ...
4
You should cater the input to the particular usage. In this case it is a Hangman game, so do some research around how other Hangman games work.
As some extensive research shows (i.e. doing a quick Google Images search for 'Hangman Game' it shows that the far more popular route is to take an alphabetical approach.
Now, this is far from a conclusive ...
4
You can use something like this:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Each green box represents a value (10 in this case)
The width of the box is irrelevant
As your health increases, the width of green boxes reduce but the width of the health bar remains the same
The main advantage is:
You can guess the % value ...
3
Colors for the Sake of Color
I wouldn’t be surprised there’re fMRI studies showing more brain processing when people look at more colorful scenes, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I don’t think there is a simple direct relation between number of colors on the screen and cognitive stress, let alone a threshold number of colors you want on the screen. ...
3
Other popular games implement this control scheme successfully; the most famous being Temple Run (Play Store | iTunes). Your control scheme is simple enough that I don't think it would cause any issues.
Note also that Temple Run is portrait, and this doesn't seem to be an issue for them. It allows playing the game with a single hand, rather than the two ...
3
I think there are a few valid options for you here, the first being let the user change where the HUD is. If that is not an option, then it depends on what you think your target audience will be and where you think they will be using their iPad or iPhone when playing.
Given that most people are right handed and will probably hold their device with the ...
3
Dewseph - we have been sticking to 720px width, simply because Facebook spends a lot of time figuring out what the majority of their users are running (browser/OS-wise), so if they set 720 as the standard width, we more or less trust that (not that we had a choice up until recently). Fluid layouts obviously give you more space to display content, but also ...
3
This seems like an implementation detail leaking into your design. It seems to me that the only reason to have only off-screen power-ups changed is that they haven't "spawned" yet, and you don't want to change something that's already spawned because that's not easy in whatever game engine you happen to be using. Am I right in that?
I personally lean more ...
3
The game Mage Gauntlet on iOS offers an interesting solution to this problem which I found quite pleasant.
It basically amounts to touching and holding in the direction you want your character to move and then you simply adjust trajectory by tracing your finger around the screen - there's no visible joystick and you are no confined to any particular ...
3
No. Radial menus do not express hierarchy, and no menu item gets parsed first (the two are not the same, incidentally).
Research into radials (like, say, http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/100 ) shows that seek time for any arbitrary element is generally consistent regardless of position. This isn't consistent with the premise that radial items are read ...
3
Depending on the type and complexity of the game, you might be better served observing someone use your game for the first time and taking note of what confuses and frustrates them. Then, concentrate on making those interface elements or tasks more obvious through succinct labeling, hover tips, visual contrast, and movement. Then, test again.
Making a ...
3
If I'm sitting down to play a game, one thing I don't want to do is read instructions. Console games don't even come with printed manuals anymore, and users are going to expect a much bigger time investment than with a web game probably.
What I do want to do is: play the game. I would recommend against a video for new users - you're asking them to make a ...
3
I think a good idea is to propose also a concept:
"The harder you play, the better you become"
Let me explain with a class dress progression from a famous title:
So children know the concept "level" and know the concept "improve while playing".
Obviously, the image I proposed is not suitable for a game for children but I hope you got the idea.
3
How about barbells? It seems like a pretty universal concept that just about anyone can understand. A small barbell is easier to lift than a big heavy barbell. You could even show someone lifting the barbells. You could show progression from a skinny kid strugling to lift a tiny barbell up to a superhero lifting an olympic deadlift with one hand.
3
This is not an actual answer to the question you asked, but did you consider not having levels at all, or at least not levels that the user chooses? Why not just start with medium level questions, and then automatically progress to harder ones if the kid answers them easily, and easier ones if he/she doesn't. You can modify the rate of progression so that ...
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