Plan for Channa Gilchrist

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Anton Bursch   (Oct 04, 2005 at 23:27 GMT)

This is a screenshot I took of the Call of Duty 2 demo gui. Maybe you will get some good ideas from it.



Personally, I am a big fan of the letterbox style for epic war games. I think it makes it feel cinematic. You can't see with this image, but the black on top and bottom is actually just slightly translucent. So, in the actual game, you can just see thru it. This is a really simple gui. The title of the game stands out but doesn't really take up a lot of room. The menu itself is really simple. The background is thematic. You could have a similiar gui with a background, it's popular among these types of games. I personally am a fan of the new backgrounds like Half Life 2 and Far Cry that show scenes of the actual game. I think that would be pretty cool. You could make the menu right on top of a scene in your game. I think that one of the Torque demos does that. I think it's cool. Maybe you guys can do what Far Cry did and have the camera follow a path around a game level. That would be cool too.
Edited on Oct 04, 2005 23:34 GMT

Anton Bursch   (Oct 05, 2005 at 00:00 GMT)

Try something like this. I did a quicky mockup of what a screenshot from a menu with a moving camera might look like for your game.


Edited on Oct 05, 2005 00:00 GMT

David Montgomery-Blake   (Oct 05, 2005 at 00:02 GMT)

Check out Guilty Gear X and XX#Reload for some amazing interface design. Whether you like fighting games or not, the interfaces are wonderfully expressive and "cool". Especially because everything you do seems to have a big effect.

Adam deGrandis   (Oct 05, 2005 at 01:22 GMT)

Id try a completely different approach. Each round of revisions you've done has followed the same layout. Title, rifle, menu bar, wierd grid thing. I find that if Im struggling, trying a completely new approach helps creative juices to flow. Then you have the option of combining the best parts of each design you do to form one uber design.

Truly, one design to rule them all.

Linhart Walter   (Oct 05, 2005 at 04:18 GMT)

it's... a little bright, perhaps if you had some contrast, or maybe make a darkened box containing your buttons. I't just too bright...

John Rockefeller   (Oct 05, 2005 at 04:30 GMT)

I love the color scheme of the blue one Anton put up, but you've got to look at the picture in the background. What does it tell the user about the game? It's just a field of ice. Where's the war?

Chris   (Oct 05, 2005 at 06:18 GMT)

Antons looks nice. Go woth something like that, with a more relevant image, perhaps rough up the font with dirtmasks etc.

Just stay away from photoshop effects, and you'll be ok :)
Edited on Oct 05, 2005 06:19 GMT

Joshua Dallman   (Oct 05, 2005 at 06:39 GMT)

ideally your gui should tell a story. I strongly second adam's suggestion to try a completely different approach. I was showing your last few blogs to a friend asking what she thought of the gui's, and they all looked pretty much the same to her. minor edits when it seems like what adam said, a fresh approach would be best.

ideally, your start screen should tell some kind of story about what the game is about. a rifle and wierd metal grid don't communicate much in the way of story. footsteps in the snow is a little better, but still pretty vague - you'd have to guess that they're enemy or soldier footsteps, and it implies the whole game takes place in the snow or something.

I don't know what this game is about, but whatever it is about, communicate that on the gui screen. and don't "overproduce" it. your logo has a drop shadow, a texture, bullet decals, and is colored, anton's logo has only a drop shadow, and yet his is more effective. keep it simple - simple ingredients skillfully crafted can most often make for a much better result.

Anton Bursch   (Oct 06, 2005 at 02:51 GMT)

@Channa

Hope you don't mind that I played with your screenshots of your gui and made that mock up above. I don't want to steal your thunder here in your plan. I just thought I could help you out. Hell... I hired Christoph Canon to do the gui for my game. So, I know how hard it can be to decide how to design a gui.

It's cool to see your progress thru your plans. Good luck with your project. Make sure to show us your final version.

Channa Langley   (Oct 06, 2005 at 02:56 GMT)

Thanks and no thats not a problem, glad to have a visual to go from as long as you dont mind if i take some ideas off of it wil keep posting til final though for the college credit may have to go with one i have til after the presentation which will be our alpha version so stilll time to figure it out for the release so keep the suggestions coming. thanks agian

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