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I'm making a screen for a mobile game (strategy like)

  • There are 3 type of resources.
  • Player has a base and bunker.
  • Also he has different types of troops.
  • Each troop can carry X resources with him and can be hidden in a bunker with a resources in a bag as well.

This screen is a bunker management screen and I'm afraid there are way too many controls rushing on a player at a same time:

http://89v4v8.axshare.com/home.html

enter image description here

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  • I would recommend you to offer presets for "Easy" / "Medium" / "Hard" which then can be modified into "Custom". I think that many Player dont want to fiddle with this
    – BlueWizard
    Jul 20, 2015 at 22:09
  • @JonasDralle, as it is online strategy game - there are no difficulty levels here if i got your comment right. Basicallty bunker is a way to hide your army and resources from other players, while you are offline. Otherwise your base will be "zeroed" (all troop will be killed and resources stolen). There are 3 use-cases for bunker: - in the end of a game session. you just hide all your stuff before you go offline - in the middle of game session. you add newly trained troop to the bunker, just in case. - when you attack somebody you pull your troops from the bunker and send them to enemy base.
    – wecando
    Jul 20, 2015 at 22:58
  • You could still offer (custom made) presets because the user might build bunkers that are specified. I dont know enough about your game mechanics to answer that question correctly. You wont need presets if the menu is really easy to use (for example when the other sliders automatically adjsut themself when you in- or secrease other slider)
    – BlueWizard
    Jul 20, 2015 at 23:02
  • @JonasDralle, yes there is a presets buttons at a bottom of scroll list. Like "Hide (to the bunker) all Military Units" and "Hide all civil units" and same with backwards effect "Deploy all Military"/"Deploy all civil". When you press one of those buttons all the sliders of the certain types of units slide to left or to the right.
    – wecando
    Jul 20, 2015 at 23:13
  • Only show sliders for the selected item.
    – Crissov
    Jul 22, 2015 at 9:08

3 Answers 3

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Repeated elements can be clustered with another structure.

Let's say you have: Archers, Spear-man, Swordsman and Catapult

You can first select - a group of unit - decide on the ratio between base/bunker with the amount of resources. If you have visual cue for each group of soldier on your screen; you do not need four sliders at all.

Of course, the new design will require more touch/click rather than current design. However, you can still keep that view for as expert view - or when you have more space for more control. Please be aware of the fact that more than 50 % traffic is now from small screen devices in game industry.

Good luck!

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  • if only there was 4 types :) There will be about 5-8 (usually) and 22 (max) types of troops. So its a scroll list of troop types on the right.
    – wecando
    Jul 20, 2015 at 23:08
  • @wecando for a mobile game, i would not have all these sliders at the same time. if you have 22 types, this can also need some clustering.
    – Abektes
    Jul 21, 2015 at 13:17
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This obviously depends a lot on the game itself. Think of the pace of the game. How fast do players need to locate and use the controls? If speed and skill is part of the gameplay it is better to have the controls designed and positioned to be used often and fast, and not having too much of them.

Sometimes a game’s complexity is the game itself. A strategy game like Civilization has a lot of controls that need to be set thoughtfully, but since it’s a turn based game the time given to the player is endless. In this case you can add controls as much as you want as long as people can still find and use them without problems.

The amount of controls you show in your example look decent to me, but since I haven't played the game I have no idea of how it would affect the gameplay, so my opinion is not much worth.

Test!

The only way to know how quick people understand the game mechanics and how well they get along with the controls, is by testing with real players. Start testing early in the design and development process and keep testing on a regular basis, it's the only way to have a good sense of how people will play and like the game.

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instead of showing all the controls at the same time you could have a view mode only with justlabels and visuals, when the play selects one of the panels it becomes editable and the controls appearenter image description here

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