The ninth week ‘s class discusses game Controllers, Embodied Play and game UI design. In my understanding, the game controller is an extension of the player’s body. Players experience the game through the controller, while the game UI is the way the game itself rewards the players.
This knowledge is very helpful for me to improve my game. My plan is that my game platform will be a PC and the controllers will be a mouse and a keyboard. As for why it’s not a mobile phone, a game controller, VR, etc., a large part of the reason is that in my over ten years of gaming career, I have spent the most time using a keyboard and mouse, and I am the most familiar with them. At the same time, I also know what the most common mapping combinations are in various games that can be operated with a keyboard and mouse, such as character movement: W/A/S/D, interaction often corresponds to E/F and so on on the keyboard, and the menu is TAB/I/ or ESC.
As for the UI design, take one of my favorite games as an example: Take Wuthering Waves for example. As you can see in the game screenshots, there are many exquisite small icons that make up the game’s UI interface. Without using text, unique style icons are used to tell players where the backpack is, where the Resonators is, and where the game Events are.etc. This not only saves screen space but also concisely conveys information to players.
Wuthering Waves— screenshot UI interface.
Last but not least, there is “Accessibility”. As a gamer, I think this is the most crucial point for the player group because it determines whether you are “comfortable” when playing a game. After all, ten players may have ten different gaming habits. It becomes very important to meet the needs of different players as much as possible in the game Settings. For example, on the Settings page of Wuthering Waves, players can freely change the keys of regular and Vehicle, sensitivity, adaptive triggers, etc., so as to adapt to the operation habits of more different players. This will also provide players with a better gaming experience and thereby earn more word-of-mouth for the game.
Wuthering Waves— screenshot Setting interface.
Overall, all of these are very useful for me to design my game.