2D Action/Adventure Interface Concept

[deadsuperhero]

This is an idea I had earlier today for a conceptual interface to facilitate both adventure gaming and action gaming in the same game. I call it the Bastard interface, mainly because it borrows ideas from various 90's Heads-Up Displays, as well as some interface elements from Zune Software 4.0 (in my mind anyways)

My main focus here is usability criticism, not art critiscism. I want to know if this works from a functional point.



I suppose it goes without saying that an explanation is needed, so I'll explain things from left to right, as well as some external not-depicted functionality. (Might do mockups for those later?)

From left to right:

The protagonist's head is shown looking off to the side on the far left, and acts as a sort of special status indicator. If the player has a good balance among stats, he will smirk. If shot at or injured, he will occasionally grimace.

Then we have the typical "health bar". Moving the mouse over it will present a simplistic bubble dialog with an indicated number of health packs.

Likewise, we then have my unique spin to gaming implemented: the "Give a Shit" bar. As someone who has a very low attention span, I pondered upon how interesting it might be to implement in a game. Let's suppose the protagonist's "G.A.S" level is incredibly low, and the player has read, say, some kind of walkthrough or is attempting to cheat. With a low G.A.S level, the protagonist will be less perceptive to the world around him, and will ignore things that may be out of the ordinary. He will walk slower, or sometimes even walk in the wrong direction if his G.A.S level is low enough. The bar is raised by several things:

1.) Consuming some sort of drug or amphetamine (as it happens in real life)

2.) Suddenly walking into a fight or witnessing a crime will automatically cause the bar to rise as the player is suddenly extremely interested in self-preservation.

3.) Contextual information is learned that syncs with things the protagonist cares about. Suppose you play a womanizer and suddenly walk up to a hot chick. Your interest levels would marginally rise.


Also, the G.A.S indicator also opens up more options in the dialog system. After all, if you don't care much about something, you're not going to want to carry on a conversation for very long.


The gun in the picture functions for two things: weapons and inventory. Left clicking will present a list of available weapons, right clicking will open up a list of the last 5 used inventory items (can be determined or queued by player. Whichever item is selected last will end up in the box. Contextual information about ammunition is given. (Or, if it is a fist or baseball bat, an infinity sign is given)

The four circles are simply for in-game functions: Inventory (The other one is a sort of inventory-on-hand), Stats (In a sort of RPG-style/QFG style), Save, and Load.

The final part of the interface is on the far right, and it's the "Notes and Notifications" section. Rather than just having something give a score, I've been pondering about possibly presenting actions and notifications about things that the player happens across to reference later. For example, if the player is given a quest or a piece of necessary information, it would pop up in the upper corner and then just be in the notes. The note tab slides out to present both character statuses, learned information, and quests. I haven't designed what the notes actually look like, as that in itself is a usability question.

Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions or questions that'd be great.

[Technocrat]

I like the sound of it, and the ideas of what's going in, but maybe just a couple of things about the GUI itself could be altered. It somehow feels rather...clustered up there at the top, it creates the impression of an awful lot of small units clustered together. I'd personally probably bring some of those things down to the bottom (maybe the head, and the gun). Or, if you're going for the 90's style, maybe put all of those things into an opaque bar, make it look more like they're all part of the same unit.

Still, it probably feels different when it's being played in a game. Nice concept you've got!

[acolite246]

Try this:
A) Merge the save & load buttons into a menu button. This lets the player change other options, too, like audio and graphical stuff.
B) G.A.S. could be a cool device... if implemented right:
    1. NEVER have an ingame device that ignores player inputs. The player will either think somethings wrong and/or will get very aggravated.
    2. Have you played the new Wolfenstein game? When you use up a special bar with your 'mana,' the color drains from the screen. How about that? or maybe, say an object is bright and stands out, have it change its colors to blend into the background more.
    3. NEVER have an item/hotspot disappear, just blend it in to the background.
    4. Rename it to "awareness" or something.