This reading log entry responds to the following assigned articles:
Alan Bradley (2017) “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study,” Gamasutra, January 24. (Assigned for 8/23)
SYH (2017) “Video game typography Parts I and II: Effectiveness,” Medium –The Space Ape Game Experience, September 1. (Assigned for 8/26)
After you have read through these readings, please write a short, personal response to the reading. In your response, at a minimum, you should comment on at least two interesting, confusing, or controversial ideas that you took away from one of the assigned articles. Your reading log entry should be between 200 and 300 words, but you should feel free to write a longer response if you have much to say.
This is Aaron. I’m testing out the comments interface to make sure that students will be able to post their reading log entries.
So far, everything appears to be working, but we won’t know for sure until everyone starts posting comments.
User interface, also known as UI, is one of the mandatory components when creating a videogame. Without one, the user would have no way to obtain vital information such as: health, ammo, direction, and objective, if they are able to figure out how to play in the first place. In my mind, a great UI gives all necessary information to the user while simultaneously enhancing the experience. The question is how to do that? Let’s start with the most important part of UI, the typography. Also known as text, this allows the user to gain information quickly and is the… Read more »
This is Alexi Mouratoff. To me the most interesting part of the readings was the focus on User Interface designs within the gamasutra article. In my option User Interface is an important but sometimes neglected aspect in many games. Their are many recent games that have very minimalist or simplistic User Interface design or even ones that are intrusive. For example I always felt like the Batman Arkham Series of Video Games suffered from bad User Interface design. This was not do to the design of the Interface it self but more of due to the placement the biggest problem… Read more »
I had thought quite a bit about HUD layout and UI in the past, in so far as recognizing that it was incredibly important to the feel and comfort of a game to have all of the information displayed in an appealing and easily understandable way, but reading these articles was the first time it had occurred to me that it might be equally important to ensure that all the mechanics and information are quickly/easily accessible. Namely, don’t bury things under menu trees. Perhaps depending on the game it makes sense to do so organizationally, but overall it might be… Read more »
I feel like user interface is really underrated to the majority of players. It seems to be a topic that goes over most people. However, the articles really show the importance of it. I loved playing Civilization V, yet really disliked Civilization VI mainly because the UI was too complicated and it did not look nice. UI can really make or break a players experience. I always praise Persona 5 for having one of the nicest and most unique UI and it really adds to the aesthetic of the game. I like how both articles talk about this concept of… Read more »
I found both the articles on typography to be incredibly interesting. I’ve played enough games to recognize quite a few cheap fonts, especially in mobile games. You can always tell when typography is an afterthought in a game rather than being part of the art direction. One of my all time favorite games is Okami, and beyond everything else that makes that game feel amazing, the type face is truly something special. The main game mechanic has to do with drawing and ink brushes, so it only makes sense that the font would feel like it was handwritten with a… Read more »
HUD design has had a huge impact on my enjoyment of games to date, but I never even considered how until I read that article. Watching my brother play TF2, everything just looked so cluttered and overwhelming to me; I couldn’t figure out what anything meant or what was supposed to be going on. But, when I tried Overwatch, everything was laid out neatly and anything I was supposed to be doing to win the game, and even just to stay alive, was provided explicitly via visual and audio cues. I have a bad habit of “tunnel vision” in video… Read more »
Looking at the readings regarding recommendations for game developers on UI design of videogames and the typography used for them. The reading that was most captivating to me as well as impressive was the one about successful HUD and UI designs for games and how that interferes with the experience players have on them. Specifically, of the six recommendations made by Bradley, the one that stuck with me the most was the one about how less can sometimes be more in video games. While I have played almost every version of Assassin’s Creed since it first came out years ago,… Read more »
The article on UI designs for games categorized all the best techniques for making an effective UI for a game. When I read the part for compact and centered HUDs I was initially confused when the article discussed Overwatch, a game I frequently played. My initial confusion came from not knowing what the author meant when they said Overwatch condensed a lot of other information into little areas in the center. The more I thought of it, the more I understood. Overwatch uses little things (some of which might not seem noticeable if you are not looking for them), like… Read more »
I have to admit that I am not the biggest video game follower. In fact, I’ve probably only played 10 different video games in my whole life. However, I do recognize that to have a successful video game there are several elements that have to be taken into account, like user interface, graphics, theme, etc. One element I hadn’t payed much attention to before, but really called my attention from the readings was typography. As the article “Video Game Typography Part II: Art Direction” by SYH mentioned, typography is not only used for the aesthetics for the game, but also… Read more »
I’ve always seen UIs as a necessary evil; I understand the necessity of UIs, especially for more complicated games where there is a lot going on, but my personal aesthetic tastes tend towards the minimal. In my own game design experience, I can’t guarantee that this isn’t just because I’m intimidated by programming responsive UI systems, but I digress. With my compunctions concerning UIs out of the way, I found Alan Bradley’s Gamasutra article the accomplishments of different kinds of UI to be enlightening. Not only because it confirmed things about UIs that I have enjoyed, such as that of… Read more »