UI concepts (functional)

[hoax2 2]

Hey all.

I saw this guy's UI interpretation and thought I would also share some of my ideas.

 

Firstly I've heard Rocket mention on numerous occasions that he wants a minimal UI -- to the point that he would prefer to not have one at all. -- I think the current UI works very well in that regard. But there are a few functional issues I thought I'd try and address rather than just apply a shooter-style re-skin. Which I think is unnecessary for the soul of this game and counter intuitive to Rocket's minimal goals.

 

Functional issues I think could be addressed with UI.

• If you miss a physiological message (bottom left messages) you are unlikely to know you're in trouble, especially in first person.
• Item stats (worn, damp, etc) are a little too easy to overlook because they are hidden behind a tool tip. I do understand that model textures change; but not dramatically enough to see the state of an inventory at a cursory glance.
• As far as I know there is no easy way to tell if something needs to be disinfected. (Should there be? I guess IRL it would smell bad? This is a hard one.)
• Health or blood status is difficult to determine using game colour/saturation alone.
• Item damage repercussions for shooting a player are ambiguous/vague.

Overly and emergency icon.

Im not sure this needs much explanation. Blood is visible as an overlay when you are bleeding. An icon would appear when you are exhibiting an emergency symptom, indicating that information in the inventory screen is critical. I am by no means attempting to make the game look like COD or some other popcorn game, It's just that the blood overly is immediately evocative.

 

Inventory

• Introduction of health/blood bar.
• Added days survived.
• Health/blood direction indicator (similar to the mod)
• Listed/pinned symptoms. Order and saturation changes on severity/importance.
  -- I imaging these could also say "inflamed wounds" and "black vomit" or something vague until you've learnt more medical skills and then it might say ''infection" and "food poisoning". Tool tips could also be used on these for further information or action hints.
• Added Item condition backgrounds (more info below)
• changed the typeface to verdana. Any humanist sans-serif would look nicer than the current font that I can only assume was picked to intentionally look like an Alpha.
• changed the clunky scroll bars to less obtrusive ones.
• changed frame border colour to be less obtrusive.
• changed item count to be more visible on white items
• changed percentage used to a progress bar to further differentiate from the item count.
• changed red X on 'hands' to "remove" and added an arrow indicating that the item will return to your inventory. You're not really closing anything so it shouldn't match the close button or traditional close-button conventions.
• Removed the item name from the quick-use tool-bar (less UI. Also you should know what it is; you put it there.)

Item condition backgrounds.

I thought these could be a good way of seeing the condition of your inventory immediately. Even at a quick glance you can see in the inventory image further above that his med-kit is badly damaged. I also think introducing visible bullet damage would be an immediate indication that shooting someone (regardless of reason) has repercussions. I can imagine looking at someone's body I just riddled with bullets and seeing nearly everything smashed up, knowing it was me and not just his crap loot. Lastly if someone's inventory was pristine it would truly look pristine!

 

This is not a job application, these are just ideas and feedback.

Would love your opinions but keep it classy and constructive. ;)

Edited December 23, 2013 by Hoax2