week 6 - User Interface

User Interface 

Overview

This week we looked at user interface, more on how the game will look while playing rather than the menus. As the game is from a first person viewpoint and we want it to be as immersive as possible, I wanted the UI to be as minimal as possible this will allow the player to be totally within the game while playing. To achieve this kind of immersion we will have to cut down on screen objects that aren't necessary for our game and reduce the size of any that are.

Details

We looked at what UI game objects the player needs on screen for them to understand what's going on, this is what we found: 

- Crosshair, in the center , for aiming. 

- Health bar, for a graphical view of how much life the character has.

- Compass or Map, to let the player determine where they are in the world and where they have to go.

- Ammo and Weapon indicators, to allow the player to tell what weapon they are holding and how much     ammo it has left. 

These are the essential items that a UI needs for the game to be successful, especially in a RPG such as ours.Here is a list of how we are going to set it out:

1. The crosshair will be very simple, a dot for melee weapons and a cross for ranged weapons.

2. The health bar will run along the top of the screen, but only appear when the player is under attack or if there health is really low.

3. There will be a compass at the bottom of the screen but it will be much like the compass from skyrim or fallout where it is unrolled into a rectangle shape. This will tell players where to go and give the player a sense of spacial awareness. 

4. As the game will feature dual weapon holding there will  a ammo and weapon indicator at the bottom corners of the screen giving a readout of what weapon you are carrying and how much ammo is remaining 

Ideas 

I have a few ideas of a how we can make the UI even better : 

1. The UI slightly changes when the player puts on better armor. example. when the player buys a better suit of armor the UI is changed in certain ways such as, customizable color, the ammo and health readouts are graphically displayed in a better way and may be damage detection is more precise.

2. May be the user could arrange their UI the way that they want to, like they could move the health bar to the bottom and the compass to the side.