[Reprint] SDL usage, Part 1: "Pirates ho !" Interface Design Principles-simplicity, consistency, and attractiveness

SDL usage, Part 1: "Pirates ho! "Interface Design Principles
Simplicity, consistency, and attraction

Sam lantinga
Loki entertainment software, chief programmer
And Lauren macdonell
Technical writer
August 2000

Content:

What is a user interface?

Interaction

Information

Entertainment

What is a "good" User Interface?

Simplicity

Consistency

Fascinating

Our Interface

Plot

Maritime logs

Game World Information

Audio

Conclusion

References

About the author

Sam lantinga and Lauren macdonell are developing "Pirates ho! "A lot of effort is invested in the game user interface. In this part of the diary (recording the creation process of this adventure treasure and role play game), the author describes the principles used in the preliminary design of their development interface.

What is a user interface?
When designing a user interface, you must first define its purpose. Our three main goals are user interaction, information and entertainment.

Interaction
The interface allows players to interact with the game, whether it is composed of a few lines of simple text or three-dimensional graphics. The primary purpose of the interface is to convert data between the game logic and players. You cannot play games without an interface. The interface tells the player what happened in the game and asks him or her to respond accordingly.

Two user interface designs (angband and Raytheon III)

Information
The page displays information about the game environment, characters, objects, and events. This information allows players to make decisions. Generally, an image is better than a description in any language. For the interface, images merged into the game can usually display information faster and more effectively than the text. This can be done through charts or symbolic notation (for example, how many lives a person has ).

Graphic Representation interface (Raptor)

Entertainment
If the interface looks interesting, entertainment can play a icing on the cake. We like games with good pictures and charming scenes, Because visual effects play the same role as even the most exciting plots. In addition, detailed illustrations allow players to have a good understanding of the image or environment characteristics of each character. Without illustrations, these fictitious details will be lost. They make the gaming world more colorful.

These three problems (interaction, information, and entertainment) largely determine the interface design method. Our task is clear: you must create a way for players to interact with the game, which will provide all the necessary information in a lively and interesting way.

What is a "good" interface?
We have considerable experience in developing user interfaces for computer games, other software and special console games. Therefore, we know exactly what to use and what not to use. We are lucky to have friends who work in the game development field. Their suggestions help us to strengthen and improve.GoodInterface Definition. In the development of "Pirates ho! "Interface, we remember the main principles: simplicity, consistency and fascinating.

Simplicity
When searching for the magic rules of the "Ideal Interface", the most common answer is simplicity. In other words, build an interface that is easy to understand and does not require a manual. Or create a sidebar that tells the player what to do next.

If we say that the interface is easy to understand, it means that you can access and respond to information in the game without a lot of intermediate steps, commands, or keys. The information appears on the screen as long as the player needs it. He or she doesn't have to wait for a long time and spend a lot of time learning how to use the keyboard, mouse, game control bar, or other tools to continue playing the game.

Humongous Entertainment's "Pajama Sam 3: you are what you eat from your head to your feet." is one of our favorite games. The UI of this game is carefully designed, so placing the mouse on an object changes the look of the arrow. A change in the arrow indicates that clicking this object triggers some things. Then players can click this object to promote the game's plot development. The arrow changes to another style, indicating the path to another screen. Move the arrow to the bottom of the screen. an image of the inventory item is displayed. Players can view the inventory. The "computer" icon pops up at the bottom of the screen along with the inventory. Players can use this icon to save or exit the game. It must be admitted that this game is suitable for children aged 3 to 8. However, the simplicity of the interface allows players to immerse themselves in cute and interesting plots. The fun of stories and the difficulties in this game have not been reduced by overly complex interfaces. This is one of the reasons why we like it so much.

"Pajama Sam 3" interface, including inventory

Some friends who work in the Game Industry remind us not to ask gamers to read the text. They told us that players will not read the text unless they have. They only want to play games. This is very helpful to us because we have not yet created a plan to print the manual. But this also means that we must be very careful to ensure that our interface is very simple and easy to use.

Consistency
We also found that consistency is very important for interface design. We occasionally encounter games that seem easy to play, but this is just before we try to switch to another screen and method. However, if the screen or method is changed, different rules will be applied. It is best to do the same thing in the same way in the game. It is best to always find important information in the same location. Our view of consistency does not necessarily require the same screen layout throughout the game. However, we recommend that you use the logic in the layout to give gamers a hunch where information can be found and how to execute commands in different parts of the game.

For example, we have been playing Blizzard's "Diablo II" recently ". We pay special attention to interface consistency. Some basic game commands can be used from start to end in the same way. It is also very easy to browse various menus, such as inventory, buy/sell/trade, skill, and attribute. These menus are in the same layout and therefore easy to browse. At any stage of the game, players can also place their mouse over objects, characters, and locations to view extremely useful brief descriptions.

"Diablo II" interface, including inventory menu

The visual style of Diablo II is also consistent. Images, menus, and control bars all share the same medieval fantasies. This visual continuity is not absolutely necessary, but it adds aesthetic enjoyment to the game experience and enhances the illusion of immersion in the game world.

Fascinating
Most of us have a pleasant experience fully attracted by movies. Highly skilled filmmakers will create and maintain a realistic and illusory world based on the lighting and sound factors, so that we will not miss it. We 'd better make our games so attractive. Each element of the user interface helps maintain the illusion that players are directly involved in the game world. Graphic elements allow gamers to visually experience the environment, activities, and local features of the game world. Music and sound effects create a special sentiment and make game events more vivid. We think Raytheon III is such an extremely realistic game. Would it be so attractive if there were no thrilling sound effects or exciting pictures?

Raytheon III Interface

Another way to maintain your fantasies about the gaming world is to disguise the elements of the interface as part of the gaming world. Movie critics use the term diegetic to describe the sound produced by people or things visible in a video's plot or environment (usually music ). A simple example of a scene element is music that starts with the appearance of a piano or coin-operated automatic phonograph. Music is still part of the music, but it is no longer a background music, because it has become part of the film. In terms of interface design, there are no words better than scenes that can describe tools, menus, or other features that are part of a game. (If you use it in a conversation, your friends will be impressed .)

Let's take a look at the example of scene elements in the game. Interplay's "Fallout II" interface includes "Pip Boy, contains information about things, electronic map display, and information about the game world ). "Pip Boy" also allows players to "wait" for a specific period of time (indicating the time when the game world time jumps forward ). In fact, in the game, "Pip Boy" is used to retrieve information from different locations on the computer. This smart scene tool allows players to search for information without having to leave the game world, thus blurring the boundaries between the game world and the real world.

"Fallout II" interface-"Pip Boy" Screen

How is our interface?
Then, if you apply it to "Pirates ho! "What will happen to the interface? We are still solving this problem, but we have a preliminary design. The words to be emphasized here are preliminary words. Before the design was completed, we probably checked all the content, but at that time it seemed to be ......

Plot
The focus of our interface is the plot. The plot allows the player to observe what happened and obtain information about the location, time, and character. This screen shows war, travel, and conversation (in other words, the game plot ). A large picture on the right of the screen shows the top view of the real scene or vessel that the player sees and the surrounding environment (during sea travel and war ). The picture in the upper-left corner shows the location, environment, time of the day, and weather conditions of the current location of the person. The picture at the bottom left is always a map, which can be a map of the game world, or a map of a town or a smaller area, depending on the location of the character traveling.

So far, our plan is to build all objects in the interface to respond to the click command. Some keyboard shortcuts or other functions may be added in the future, but now, it seems to be the simplest and most direct method. We plan to include descriptions of objects, locations, buttons, and characters. As long as the player's mouse is placed on these objects, corresponding descriptions will appear. By using the same layout for all interactions in the game and providing ubiquitous information, we hope to balance simplicity, visual consistency, and information availability.

Game Layout

Maritime logs
"Marine log" is a good plot element example in our design. We use it to describe information about the status, reserve, inventory, and crew of things. It is similar to a notebook, with three parts containing different information. In the plot, you can click the book shape icon near the bottom of the screen to view the information. Some or a "page" log will contain basic things information, which will be automatically entered and updated. Players can enter their own comments in the log to describe this information in detail. The next page displays detailed information about reserves and assets, and allows players to choose weapons, reserves, and other items they carry when they leave the ship. The third page displays information about the crew and allows players to allocate property, weapons, and reserves to the crew. We try to merge the summary information in the log into the plot, so that players do not have to spend time searching for what they are looking for on different screens.

Maritime logs

Game World Information
Another scenario tool we developed will record the history, economy, geography, and culture of the game world. This information allows gamers to understand the basic patterns of events in the game world. This information will be displayed in the environment of the reference tool "Brief History of island" created by Frederick figgleworth. Figgleworth sometimes appears in the game and communicates with players.

According to the previous statement against allowing gamers to read too much text, the text information we include about the game world is somewhat self-contradictory. That is one of the reasons why we make the interface seem like a game world. A brief history is the easiest way to give an overview of the operating modes in the gaming world. Of course, players do not have to read history records. By interacting and exploring in the game, they will eventually collect the same information. A brief history is intended to serve as a complementary reference tool, rather than the only source of information in the gaming world.

"Brief History" reference tools

Audio
Although the range has not been determined, we still plan to merge the audio features into the interface. We may not play any episodes throughout the game, but may play some music that matches the special atmosphere. We have listened to some traditional folk songs and ship songs themed by air and sea, and asked musicians and friends to help us find a violator and a six-hole little flute performer. We also hope to use voiceover in some dialog boxes, which can tell players information about characters in the game in another way. Of course, we will also add sound effects to war scenes, and add environmental sounds to character communication and travel scenes.

Conclusion
After a lot of research and discussion, we now have a preliminary design of the user interface, along with "Pirates ho! "The development work is ongoing, and we will gradually improve this design. At present, we are very satisfied with the simplicity and consistency of the interface design. We do our best to use the interface to fully attract players to this game world.

References

• Please visit Pirates ho! Website
• You can download the source code of this sample:
  • Eval.tar.gz (script sample source code)
  • Snapshot-043000.tar.gz (game source code snapshot)
• "Pirates ho! "Library used
  • Sdl_image
  • Sdl_mixer
  • Sdl_ttf
• Lex & YACC, version 2nd (o'reilly, November 1992)
• DeveloperworksOn the "Pirates ho! "Series:
  • "SDL: make Linux interesting"
  • "Use SDL:" Pirates ho! "Birth"
  • SDL usage, Part 1: "Pirates ho! "Encoding
  • "SDL usage, Part 1: Graphic Design"
  • "SDL usage, Part 1: Lex and YACC"
• Introduction to SDL APIs

About the author
Sam lantinga is the author of the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) Library and is now the chief programmer of Loki entertainment software, a company dedicated to producing the best-selling Linux games. He started dealing with Linux and games in 1995 and engaged in various types of doom! Tool porting and Macintosh gamesMaelstromPort to Linux.

Lauren macdonell is a freelance Technical writer and also "Pirates ho! .