It is fairly easy to find academic information on the topic of video game user interfaces online, and from a totally theoretical perspective, that information is quite interesting. I am going to ignore all of that in this article though, for several reasons. The first is that most sources use inconsistent terminology that is not very useful for application of the knowledge. The second is that the highly theoretical focus ultimately fails to provide much value for actual game design. On an academic level, if you ignore the terminology problems, it is certainly interesting, but when you are actually making a game, it is not that helpful. Since there is not a significant body of work on this subject that can be applied to real world game design, I will be using my own, very consistent, terminology.
Before we get into the meat of this subject, there are some terms that are important to understand. To begin with, every video game consists of two "worlds" or settings. The one everyone is familiar with is the (generally) fictional world inside the game. This is where the characters or objects that the player interacts with during game play exist. There is also the "world" of the game application itself. This world is not part of the game world. It contains things like the main menu, various other game menus, as well as indicators that tell something about the character or the game world, but which are not an actual part of the game world. In this article, we will call any kind of interface that exists within the game world an "internal" interface. Interfaces that exist in the application outside of the game world are "external" interfaces. There is a second set of terms we will use to specify exactly what a given interface affects. A "game" interface affects things inside the game world. A "meta-game" interface affects the application outside of the game world. This gives us a total of four interface types, defined by where the interface is and what it affects.
Internal Game Interfaces
Internal game interfaces are interfaces that exist in the game world and affect the game world. The Myst series is full of examples of internal game interfaces. In the original Myst game, there is a small room at the dock. Inside there is a holographic projector. On one wall, there is a control panel can be used to make the projector play back different projections. This control panel, as well as the button to activate the projector are internal game interfaces. The controls are part of the game world, and they affect the projector, which is part of the game world. The entire point of the Myst games is to solve puzzles in the game by using interfaces that are part of the game world. These are all internal game interfaces.
External Game Interfaces
External game interfaces exist as part of the application outside of the game world, but they affect things in the game world. Perhaps the best example is input devices, like keyboards, mice, or controllers, which are actually outside of the application, the operating system, and in many cases, even the computer itself. Input devices often function in multiple capacities, as they can usually affect the meta-game as well, so it might be better to look at interfaces that are part of the application.
World of Warcraft offers some good examples. One is the crafting interface. In WoW, when a player wants to craft an item, the player opens a menu window that displays all of the possible items that can be crafted in a specific category. The player then selects the desired item and clicks a button to tell the game to craft the item. This interface is not part of the game world. It exists to abstract and simplify crafting in the game. The affect once the player submits the desired item is that materials are removed from the character's inventory and the crafted item is added. This effect is completely within the game world, which is why the interface is a game interface.
In general, external game interfaces exist to abstract in-game processes. It would not be very reasonable for WoW players to have to literally forge items in-game. External game interfaces are also very common in real-time strategy games, in the form of menus of buttons used to command units. Clicking a button represents sending an order to a unit or a group of units. Even unit selection uses an external game interface. This is because it would be unreasonable to expect the player to issue vocal commands to every unit, and even something as trivial as grouping units would require the player to memorize unique identifiers (names) for every unit they control. For some types of games, external game interfaces are essential for making the game playable.
Interfaces do not have to be directly interactive, and the most common external game interfaces are not. Thinks like health bars and other status indicators are generally implemented as external game interfaces. The indicator on your screen is not a literal part of the game world. It is not something your character can see, but it does represent something about your character or the world. Note, however, that not all status indicators are external. In a driving game, a speedometer displayed as part of the dashboard of the car is an internal interface. In the Halo series, the health, weapon, and ammo status indicators are part of the character's equipment, and as such, they are actually part of the game world. This also makes them internal game interfaces. Doing this can make a game more immersive, as long as it does not interfere with game play.
Internal Meta-game Interfaces
Internal meta-game interfaces have never been too common. They tend to break suspension of disbelief, which can ruin the game for some players. Internal meta-game interfaces exist within the game world, but they affect the outside application. The one place this kind of interface is common is older console platformers, where the character could save the game by activating an in-game console or save point. Note, though, that game narrative can affect whether an interface is game or meta-game. If the narrative states that the character is using the console to store memory and genetic data which can be used to create a new clone of the character in case of death, then the interface is actually affecting the game world and not the application. Without such a narrative though, this kind of interface is meta-game.
More rarely, in-game terminals have been used as full meta-game interfaces. Some console games and even a few PC games do not allow the player to access any meta-game controls except when their character is at an in-game terminal. This may be intended as an immersion tactic, but it is not a very good one. In general, mixing internal with meta-game or external with game is a good way to break suspension of disbelief and thus make the game less immersive. The most immersive games maintain strict separation of the game world from the external application. Perhaps the best examples are the Myst series and the Halo series. Internal meta-game interfaces can be a fun gimmick, but they tend to make the game feel more casual.
External Meta-game Interfaces
This is fairly simple. External meta-game interfaces exist outside of the game world and they affect the outside game application. These include main menus, menus that affect things like key bindings, graphics resolution and quality, and sound volume, menus for loading and saving games, and even autosave features that are activated at the completion of a level. Even controls that define how a game world is going to be created (difficulty level, terrain parameters, which map to play on, who is going to play, etc...) are external meta-game interfaces (note, however, that a menu for changing difficulty after the game has started is an external game interface, because it is changing the game world; before it is created, the game world does not yet exist to be changed). External meta-game interfaces are one of the most common types of interface in modern games.
Understanding the different types of interfaces can you tailor a game to have the feel you want. Immersive games tend to stick with external meta-game interfaces and internal game interfaces. When complexity is high, external game interfaces may be necessary as a buffer between the player and some in-game process (or they may be necessary to avoid excessive amounts of coding and design on trivial elements of the game). Internal meta-game interfaces offer some degree of novelty, and they can make a game feel more casual, but if immersion is important to your game, they will likely interfere.
Controls
The controls used for playing a game also have a strong effect on how the game feels and is played. The ideal controls for a game leverage natural mapping.
Natural mapping is when the controls for a game mirror how the process in the game works in real life. For example, a driving game that uses a steering wheel and a set of foot pedals maps naturally to how cars are controlled in real life. The Nintendo Wii has a lot of games that use natural mapping, including bowling and tennis. Unfortunately, sometimes attempts at natural mapping can fail. There are a number of games that use motion control that are actually much harder to play, because the designers picked control schemes that seem to use natural mapping but which are not natural at all. Natural mapping for controls is a fairly young field, so you can expect to see more research on the subject in the future.
Almost as important as natural mapping is familiarity. This is why attempts at natural mapping sometimes fail. If a player is used to using a simple controller for playing platformers, adding motion control, even when it leverages natural mapping very well, can make the game significantly harder to play. While natural mapping can be very good for inexperienced people, familiarity dominates for people that are already familiar with traditional control schemes. Familiarity is a major reason why so many games still support the WASD keys for movement, even though typical keyboards have had arrow keys for over two decades (there are some other benefits to the WASD key mapping, but familiarity is the main reason it is still around). Using a familiar control scheme is very useful in game design, because many players will be able to get into the game much more quickly than they would if they had to deal with learning a new control scheme.
The most common controller types are console controllers, keyboards, and the combination of keyboard and mouse. Each of these offers unique benefits as well as challenges. Controllers tend to fit in the hands well, and they are often very intuitive to experienced players. They also offer a limited range of options, which can keep the controls simple. Unfortunately, the lack of options can limit overall richness of the game, and it can also make it hard for game designers to map all of the necessary controls for the game. Because controllers have limited numbers of inputs, they can impose strict limits on how much the player can do in the game. Keyboards offer an enormous range of control options, which can allow for a very rich game interface. It is almost impossible to design a game that gives the player enough options to use an entire keyboard. Keyboards do not offer analog controls though, and the richness of the keyboard as a controller can tempt game designers to make games far too complicated. The last common control is the keyboard and mouse combination. The main benefit of this is that it adds a highly responsive analog control. In games that need a highly responsive analog control, game controllers and keyboards are not enough. The keyboard and mouse combination is not always available or feasible, but when it is, it offers the largest range of control options.
I also want to share some examples of poor controller choices. The first is real-time strategy games using console controllers. Command and Conquer: Red Alert and Starcraft are two RTS games that were released for console. Unfortunately, neither were very successful. I once watched someone try to play Red Alert on a console, and the reason for the lack of success was clear: Game controllers are not responsive enough. A secondary problem is the lack of hotkeys, but the response time was the main problem. In RTS games, the most successful players are the ones who can quickly select arbitrary groups of units and give them orders. It is important to be able to split up groups of units that are close together very quickly. Waiting for a pointer to move across the screen as you hold the joystick or digital pad on a controller is a problem, and changing the speed of the pointer does not help. The general process of quickly selecting a group of units with a mouse involves an initial very rapid movement to get the pointer close to the units, then the movement slows down a bit to ensure units are selected precisely. Even a good analog stick with cursor speed based on how far the stick is pushed cannot get the same precision as a mouse. This added to the very limited hotkey selection imposed by a controller with only a few buttons makes RTS games very difficult to play using controllers.
The second example was self imposed. Some guy decided to get good at playing DOTA2 using a PS 3 controller. He proved that it is possible, but he admits that the controller is so limiting that he could never compete with top players. The problem is that he has reached a point where the controller limits his skill in the game, where a keyboard and mouse would allow additional improvement. While it may have been a fun experiment, and he did prove it is possible to get good at the game with a controller, ultimately the complexity of the game makes it impossible to progress past a certain point without a better interface device.
Aesthetics
We have mostly talked about technical parts of user interface. While having a good user interface is essential to a good game, usability is not the only important factor in user interface design. Aesthetics is also very important in how players feel about your game, and the user interface is a large part of that.
How your interface elements look and work has a major impact on the look and feel of your game. A user interface that seems out of place for the style of game can harm the experience for players. Look and feel is also an element of branding. Using a consistent user interface style can define your game and your company. A smooth user interface can make your game feel well designed and very user friendly, while a clunky user interface can make your game feel poorly designed, even if the game itself is the same. In a game intended to be immersive, a well integrated user interface that blends into the game can make a huge difference. When designing a user interface for a game, it is important to consider how it will make the game feel for players.
When using a programming language that comes with a GUI library, it can be very tempting to use the various UI elements included in the library. It is easy to find GUI libraries with stock buttons, menus, check boxes, and so on. Giving in to the temptation to use these can ruin a perfectly good game idea. Using stock UI elements imposes the aesthetics of the library on your game. For extremely casual games, this is not always a bad thing, but this tends to make games look unprofessional. Whenever possible, it is best to make your own custom UI elements that fit the look and feel of your game. Some UI libraries offer options for this, but many are not sufficiently customizable for making professional looking games. Often it is best to create a simple framework for making custom UI elements, and then tweak a copy of it to work for each game you use it in.
Aesthetics can be an important element of brand identity. You will get a reputation based on how your games look and feel. If you consistently use old 8-bit style graphics, you will get a reputation as a modern retro game maker. If you consistently use low quality graphics, you will get a reputation for crummy graphics (this is not necessarily a bad thing, for example if you have a reputation for very engaging stories in your games). Cartoonish interfaces will make your company feel more casual, and more realistic interfaces and graphics will make your company feel more hardcore. When selecting graphics and designing UI, it is wise to consider how your game aesthetic will make people feel about your brand.
No comments:
Post a Comment