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 1/27)
SYH (2017) “Video game typography Parts I and II: Effectiveness,” Medium –The Space Ape Game Experience, September 1. (Assigned for 1/29)
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.
I believe that the SYH article, “Video Game Typography Part I: Effectiveness,” brought up some interesting points about typography. I knew art direction was important, but I never considered typography as a major element of it. I thought the graphic aesthetic (in terms of characters, landscapes, and maps) was the most important. Now I realize that typography contributes to that and is equally important. Although, I do think it is more noticeable when typography detracts from the game aesthetic, is not effective, and is too visually complex – “less is more,” as the Alan Bradley article pointed out. What was the most interesting to me was the distinctions between good usability and bad aesthetics and vice versa. Having the perfect combination of the two does not seem that difficult, but as the visual examples demonstrate, one misstep can affect the entire gaming experience. Another interesting point was the incorporation of “thematically sensible” typography. The personalization of the typography seems to play into the game’s branding. It also adds an extra flair which really amplifies the overall gaming experience. Again, it seems like common sense, but it does make a huge difference and was not something that I thought a lot about either.
I thoroughly enjoyed the article, “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study,” as I love the little details that game developers put into their UIs. I thought a lot about the 6th example, where UI and UX are blended to make a menu that is both a tool for the player and a tool that the character is interacting with in game. Batman: Arkham Knight uses this kind of UI/UX blend when Batman receives video calls from various other characters, and the arm of his suit projects an holographic image that he looks at in front of him. One of the little details present is that his eyes, which are normally completely visible, are cloudy when the hologram comes up, suggesting that the hologram isn’t being projected for everyone to see, but that Batman is viewing the video through lenses in his cowl. The 6th example also made me think of the Halo franchise, in which players inhabit super-soldiers inside mechanized exoskeletal suits of armor. Most of the halo games actually occlude part of the screen from the player in the outline of the visor on the character’s helmet, suggesting that the UI (which contains icons for shields, ammo, radar, and objective markers) is actually what the character would see in the HUD of their helmet.
As a Communication major, I’m familiar with typography and its significance. However, I’ve only ever studied it in the context of print media and web design, and have never taken the time to think about the profound impact that it has on interactive media such as video games. I’ve also never thought simultaneously about how text can either help or hinder both readability/user-friendliness AND aesthetic. Since video games are meant to be ultra-immersive for the player, one wrong move on typography can ruin the whole gameplay experience, either by forcing the player to strain their eyes and waste their time trying to work through unreadable type, or by creating conflicting moods which take the reader out of the game’s story/atmosphere and create confusion.
What I most appreciated about these typography articles was the frequent inclusion of screencaps and videos from the games that were being discussed. It was so much more engaging and exciting to be able to observe what was being talked about first-hand. I loved getting lost inside the visuals, noticing more and more fine details the longer I looked. The era-based art direction was the most impressive to me personally. I mean, the bullet belt loading bar?? Immaculate. So creative. Not to mention the realism of the military documents with typewriter print and the manilla folders. In LA Noire, the realism of the notebook and the historical accuracy of the noir title slides just shows how above-and-beyond the art directors went. Same with Alien Isolation; the futuristic aesthetic combined with the 1970s influences of VHS tapes was a really creative touch.
When you think about typography, you might have a tendency to brush it off as simple. How hard is it to choose a font? But reading these articles reveal that typography itself is art, and it’s nothing to look down on. Typography conveys historical context, realism, aesthetic, and so much more. There are so many factors to consider. I have an even more heightened respect for art directors now!!
After reading SYH’s article “Video game typography Parts I and II: Effectiveness,” I experienced a sense of shock and a new desire for inquiry as I never considered how vital and impactful typography can be in games. I initially noticed this new understanding and want to learn more about typography when I discovered in SYH’s first blog that typography could, on a macro-level, even influence a player’s perception of a game as typography can be a characteristic that conveys the genre of a game. Besides finding how typography can drastically impact a game’s mood, surprising and interesting, I was also amazed that typography could additionally affect how a player engages with a game. As mentioned by SYH in the second blog post, typography in a game can, for example, provide a player context into the time period in which the game is set in as well as serve as a resource for players.
By providing insight into the time period, to my shock typography characteristics such as color, font, and point size can better immerse players into the challenges, people, objects, and the environment surrounding them as well as influence a player’s decisions and, therefore, their journey in advancing themselves within a game. The role typography plays in games extends beyond its physical characteristics.
These articles really highlighted the ways in which aspects of a game that many people oftentimes don’t give much attention to as players can be utilized to stand out against competitors. However, they also displayed the ease with which creators can mistakenly weaken their content. The article “Video game typography II: Art Direction” discusses the interesting strategies in which several games used typography in order to reflect the themes and concepts of the games themselves. Red Dead Redemption 2’s typeface looks as if it came straight from a typewriter, enhancing the experience of the player living at the turn of the 20th century. Furthermore, the typeface is generally used on paper that looks like it belongs in the year 1899一complete with torn edges, varying textures, and a yellow tone emblematic of the materials used to make paper at the time一adding to the authentic feel of the game. However, in another aspect of the game, typography that fits the aesthetic Red Dead Redemption 2 detracts from the ease at which players want to utilize the map function. While using the characters’ cursive-style initials to display the player’s missions adds to the feel of the game, these initials are continually difficult to read on the map. As mentioned in the SYH’s article “Video game typography I: Effectiveness,” video games should ensure that their font is not too “visually complex” for a player to read quickly. Red Dead Redemption 2 excels in its ability to utilize typeface to enhance the aesthetic of the game in order to make players truly feel like they are in the Wild West, but does it push this to the point that it harms the game?
I hate to admit that I haven’t given much thought to the typeface of a game unless it obviously hindered my gameplay. However, it is clear that recognizing the intentional use of a typeface in order to enhance the authenticity of a game adds another dimension to appreciate while playing the game.
As someone who doesn’t play a lot of video games, I actually have watched a surprising amount. Many of my friends and significant others have been gamers, and I’ve always enjoyed trying to follow along and watching them play a game they enjoy. I even had a group of friends in high school who played ‘The Last of Us” together. Huddled around in my friend Harmon’s small movie room, we’d pass the controller around, each taking turns at different stages of the game, and the rest watching along as if it was a movie (the narrative format of that game made it an ideal candidate.) As part of these experiences, I have strong opinions on games with good UI because there is a distinct difference between games that are easy to follow along with when you’re not the one playing, and other games that are very difficult to follow along with. I agree with Bradley in “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study,” less IS more. Games with lots of information on the HUD, distract from gameplay, and when the character has to move quickly through the game to succeed, it makes it even more difficult to follow along. I’m interested to talk about this perspective with other people in the class who play more games than me and see the differences.
I enjoyed reading, “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study,” by Alan Bradley. This article concisely discussed numerous examples of video games that utilized video games’ UI and HUD in advantageous ways. Some games utilized a simple approach to cater to a wider audience while others emphasized the ability to play the game without a HUD. One of the examples I found most interesting was the Assassin’s Creed example. Bradley describes the ingenious way that Assassin’s Creed’s beautiful game design can be enhanced by removing the HUD altogether. The concluding quote rightly states, “Sometimes the mark of a strong design philosophy is how well a game plays with no HUD at all.” Another interesting point made in the article was about the simplicity of Clash Royale’s HUD. In order to reach a wider audience the developers chose to adopt a simple menu style and intuitive UI. Additionally, I am a fan of mobile games and have noticed the relative ease there is to switch and learn a new game. However, I overlooked the fact that the layouts, HUDs, and UIs of these mid-core mobile games were all very similar in nature.
I really enjoyed the “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study” reading which was primarily about HUDs. It’s interesting how much thought goes into a display whose purpose is to not be noticed—or at least be as unintrusive as possible. But it makes total sense. It’s kind of like how the best video editing is the editing that doesn’t feel like editing.
In the first example, the game Clash Royale is praised for its successful appeal to a “‘mid-core’ audience—players that fall somewhere between casual and hardcore.” The explanations of the game’s “snappy UI” that lets players swipe smoothly through tabs instead of cumbersome menus sounded nice (although I’m sure actually playing the game would make it make even more sense). My question, then, is what exactly makes the difference between casual and hardcore interfaces? One can obviously make some inferences, but the article didn’t really define them concretely, and I was curious.
Another thing that caught my interest was example 5, Assassin’s Creed, which was praised for its experience of having no HUD. This reminded me of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I’ve been playing recently. Like Assassin’s Creed, BOTW is an expansive open-world game with a multitude of avenues for exploration and no set linear path for you to follow in the game. You can literally go straight to the final boss after completing the extended tutorial, or you can spend hundreds of hours poking around every little nook and cranny before facing Ganon. It’s your choice. Fittingly, another choice you have in the game is whether or not to turn on the HUD, which includes a mini-map, weather gauge, noise indicator, time of day, and button mapping. Turning it off certainly adds a layer of challenge to the game, while at the same time heightening that sense of freedom and exploration. But the quality of the HUD itself must not be discounted. I’ll admit I’m more of a go-getter when it comes to games, preferring to advance the story or complete achievements with some type of reward rather than explore just for the sake of exploring. This is to say I keep the HUD on, and I think it’s great. It’s visually appealing and well-integrated into the look and feel of the game. It’s clear, concise, and not distracting at all. And I think there’s something to be said about a game that’s equally enjoyable whether the HUD is on or off.
The “6 examples of UI design” article was interesting to me because I’d never really thought about HUDs before unless they were absolutely awful and unusable, or if they were noticeably changing (LoL, and not for the better :/). The nice thing about this article was that it gave examples of games I am aware of or have played before which made it easy to understand. I am rather curious about the differences in HUDs from multiplatform games (ex: Genshin Impact). Should they look the same on different platforms even if their accessibility/usability is different?
I’ve never really thought about typology in video games before either. The most I ever paid attention to it was when my high school classmates would make a powerpoint with black background and red, swirly text because it was supposed to look cool and turned out totally unreadable. That’s definitely how I felt about the vampire video game. I did like the commentary about how the typography displayed interesting dynamics, and I agreed that it didn’t turn out very well. I think the most fascinating thing I pulled out from any of the articles was the fact that some typography is linked to a specific era or time. It makes sense when I think about it, but when I first read the articles, I was mind blown. The fact that just based on the shape and color of letters, we can be reminded of typewriters, 1920s advertising, or old 1970s computer screens is absolutely amazing. My history nerd brain really loves this fact, especially since I will choose to use old typewriter fonts in a project if given half a chance.
I thought these articles were really interesting and gave a different perspective of typography that I have not taken to account the impact it has on the effectiveness, art direction, and branding of the game. As someone who is experienced with print and digital design, I never looked into the importance of typography in interactive media. Like the article mentioned, typography is the first thing you notice when you launch a game and is important to make the player comfortable while they are playing. As someone who does not play video games frequently, I did not realize the importance of typography and design in the HUD. With the wrong fonts and display, this can be very distracting and overwhelming for the player. In the article, “6 Examples of UI Design that every game developer should study,” highlights the major design elements that are underrated in the game world. “Less is more” and “Integrated and attractive” are the 2 features that I agreed with the most because they can be overlooked, yet they are so functional. Overall, I think typography has a large impact not only in the design element but the user experience as a whole. The intentionality of the typefaces shows that detail does enhance the play quality and central part of branding.
With the SYH articles discussing typeface, the most dramatic takeaway I had was in the counterexamples, where the designers made a choice that didn’t work well. My experience with typeface has been one where it seems easy to read about, but when you go to do it yourself then it’s incredibly hard to make a choice out of the endless options. There are lists and lists of fonts, or you could even design your own hand have complete creative freedom. The font choices in Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines are clearly bad purely on the basis of their being unreadable. The article specifies that they would be better for logo work than for sentences of text. If the user cannot easily read the text, then they are not likely to play the game to completion. Games are intended to be a fun escape, not an additional source of work.
I also found it worth noting that Hearthstones was noted as a good example for both its HUD (a term I had never specifically used before that article, actually) and its font choices. Clearly good design principles go hand in hand. I’ve never played it but it does remind me of Little Alchemist (also a card-based strategy game where you battled another player) and it’s remarkable how much these games resemble each other.
I enjoyed reading “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study” by Alan Bradley. When I read a few examples in particular, I was reminded of games that I have played in the past.
For instance, when Bradley cited Om Tandon’s description of most mobile games UI, it instantly took me back to playing Clash of Clans in my freshman year of high school. It is interesting to me that the same company was behind Clash Royale. The description of the different tabs that the player can scroll through reminded me a little of web browsers, and their tabs that users can separate and scroll through at will. While the similarity may not be intentional, I think it begs the question of what other design elements outside of gaming can be brought into the gaming sphere.
As a Day 1 Assassins Creed fan, I am very familiar with its more minimal style of UI. I have seen it in some of my other favorite games like Skyrim and Dead Space. In Skyrim, status bars like health and stamina disappear when they aren’t being changed for a certain amount of time. This means that the player sees a more realistic perspective of a character in the world, but still has access to that information when it is relevant. Similarly, in Dead Space the UI is actually built into the model of the main character. Lights on his backpack indicate health, and each gun has a holographic display on it displaying the amount of remaining ammunition. This let players focus more on the horrific environment they were trying to navigate through in the game. If a player was distracted by checking their stats, then they might not be able to fully immerse themselves in the chilly atmosphere of the game. I personally really enjoy these minimal huds because they take the game from something you play to something that you experience.
In SYH’s article “Video Game Typography Part I: Effectiveness, the writer brings up some very good points about choosing the best fonts for your work. It’s something I have struggled with for years, partly with being indecisive and partly because I have never had formal graphic design training so everything that I have created in the past was based off of my instincts.
It was surprising to me when I read the 4 questions the author recommends for developers to answer when making font choices. Since I have only worked on small graphic design projects, I never realized the need for developers to make sure their font choices work for many languages. It makes complete sense now that I think about it, because you wouldn’t want to have to redo all your font choices based on all the different languages your users may speak.
The last recommendation about making sure the font that you choose has multiple variations, like bold type, was very familiar to me because a lot of interesting free fonts on the internet often don’t have those family variations. I remember using a perfect font for a project and then realizing I needed to offset it with a bold type. I had to find a whole new font to use instead after making all the perfect adjustments and rotations for my hat specific font already. So I definitely try to use fonts with family variations now just like the article suggests.
I really enjoyed reading these articles, especially because they provided concrete visual examples- there were even some games that I recognized among the mix. This made it easier to instantly understand and distinguish between the good and mediocre UI designs presented by the author. Reading these pieces made me realize that although I have never considered myself an expert on design (and overall, usually considered the quality of the content like the characters and storyline before the overall look) typography and art direction has been subconsciously effecting my engagement with the media I have been consuming. In reflecting on my past experiences with games on various platforms, I find that most of the titles I enjoy the most follow the “good usability/good aesthetic” guideline mentioned in “Video Game Typography Part I: Effectiveness,” with easily readable font that is integrated smoothly with the overall image of the game. As for “Video Game Typography Part II: Art Direction” I especially enjoyed the emphasis the article put on proper period setting typography and art direction that matches the aesthetic of the era- when it comes to gaming, there are few things worse than being completely immersed in the fantasy presented, only to be thrown out of the world and placed back into your own, even by something as small as a misplaced font.
While reading the article “6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study”, I found it really interesting in seeing how different games truly do benefit greatly from different UI. The three UI that interested me the most were the ones from Half Life 2, Overwatch, Dead Space, and Assassins’ creed because of their use of the in game world to add on to the UI creating a seamless connection between UI and gameplay. Whether its the audio effects when using the gravity gun or the way you can see Zarya’s gun literally glow brighter as it charges up, displaying UI information as in game effects that are not displayed as a classic HUD increases the immersion and more easily allows a player to have the information they need to act. That being said however, one really interesting case of UI design that the article doesn’t mention but I do believe connects is that of Persona 5 in which every single design choice continues the overall aesthetic of the game. From health bars being hearts representing the game’s titular Phantom Thieves of Hearts, the comic book panels of the menu, to even the win screen of every battle merging seamlessly back into the overworld from the battle mode. This UI is over the top, always in your face and yet works fantastically because despite being so blatant it is central not to gameplay but to the energy of the game with its aesthetics being central, making every single aspect of the game entertaining by giving even the menus a personality.
After reading the article I was really interested to see how UI is such an integral part of being a designer. As a gamer I really do appreciate a well rounded interface of a game as the smallest things such as typography plays such a big deal. I am a graphic designer for a few different businesses and I know that typography can make or break how something looks when creating a poster or banner. So creating a menu or anything like that in a game that players will have to interact with for the majority of their time is a crucial part of making it good. Fallout 4 had one of the best UI in any game I ever played with their “new old” tech that resembled what would have been the newest tech at that time makes you feel like you were in that time frame as you played. Even in mobile games if I know the UI is not good it deters me from playing the game even if I really like the game. I play a game on my phone called FRLegends and it is a racing game that has amazing UI/UX and makes me want to play it anytime I have a moment.