GUI - how much do you need to know about this?

[Mariotroid]

I was watching Tim Ruswick on youtube. He is an indie game developer. He suggested to learn game user interface or GUI. How much do I need to know about this? What do I need to know about this? I never researched this topic. Have you folks found any useful tips for GUIs in your game?

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[Solid Snake]

Simple, but stylish, is usually the best way to go.

You don't want to go so simple the menus and such are completely indistinct and bland, but you also don't want to go so complex they just become too noisy and difficult to navigate. This isn't to say you can't use complex images or the like - like character mugshots or whatever - but if something is visually noisy, you want to keep the noise around it to a minimum. For example, if you have a menu displaying a character's image, try to keep the area around the character image kinda simple - use only a single colour, or range of colours, and not a complex background.

Something useful is to use a sort of "staggered complexity" if that's a term that makes any sense. Basically, you can have your top menu or main menu or whatever feature the most amount of complexity - larger selections, with intertwined images, using varied colours - and then each menu "down" is less complex - smaller selections, perhaps without images, based in a single hue or range of hues.

For Sticker Stage's original menu system, before I switched to Paper Mario graphics, everything was styled as a book. Each top menu option had its own colour associated with it, and each menu section used that colour - for example, the My Music choice was purple, so the My Music menu was also purple. The Options choice was green, so the Options menu was also green. Something as simple as that can really help the whole thing feel more unified.

You don't have to do that, by the way - different projects require different GUI approaches. Metal Gear Solid has traditionally had very simple menu systems that don't use staggered complexity at all. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U technically has staggered complexity and a decent "size equals importance" philosophy but it also uses funky shapes and stuff that are totally weird and unpleasant. But it's a pretty decent rule of thumb, I think.

Never forget sound, either - one of the things that helps Metal Gear Solid's menu system remain distinct even though it's very simple are its sound effects.

Falcon Punch is the result of the Sun heating fists. It drives the Blue Falcon. Heating causes destruction of water into the pain, where it then hurts, creating rain. Rain creates flowing water in tears, which can then be converted into other forms through more pain.

This fight has only just begun...

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[Mariotroid]

Thank you for the info. This all seems logical to me now. It does make sense to me that it needs to be simplistic and useful. I'll try to keep this all in mind. Thanks again!!

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