Building games that can be understood at a glance
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#2I see this in cartography a lot. Traditionally we had to author static maps so they needed to have all the data you might need "rendered" at the same time. Look at a road map from your glove box for this. But with digital maps (and games, and apps, etc) you can be far more judicious about what to show initially, always, incrementally, and through custom settings.
Into The Breach is beautifully successful at this. At any point you see nothing but the current state of the board. Everything that can be memorized is hidden. But for accessibility you can always quickly get at token meanings, stats, etc.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#3"Bounce and Bounce". A viral game hit on WeChat. Fulfils this criteria. There is something deeply rewarding about the one touch game mechanic and ensuing chain reaction. Not to mention an ideal candidate for iOS / Android clones ;)
https://technode.com/2018/04/25/mini-game-balls-viral-wechat...
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#4tl;dr Consider designing games that follow the "three reads" design strategy.[0] Which is to say, match presentation emphasis with import. ex, internet browsers contemporarily hide our menu bar because it is relevant less often than the great big dom rendering I asked for.
[0] https://www.canva.com/learn/typeface-fonts/ (warning, js heavy scrolling)
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#5Alternative title: Building single screen casual games.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#6Alternative title: Building single screen casual games.
This. The continuous push to make everything easy (as in gameplay and also learning) is annoying. Not all games have to be simple. I believe games have huge potential for teaching problem solving and systematic thinking, but by dumbing them down were partially eliminating this.
The ultimate example are mobile games. They optimized for profit by dumbing them down and adding addictive, simple gameplay loops. They also incredibly boring in longer term, but it doesn't matter because they've probably extracted enough money from you at that point.
This goes beyond gaming and applies to our industry in general. I strongly believe that having more complex, but powerful software is better for the society at large. Encouraging people to not give up when they encounter simple problems and promoting systematic thinking is important. But it's not as profitable and you lose users.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#7I've designed and built a quite popular game called ∞ Loop (http://loopgame.co). One of the goals was to have no text in the game at all, and try to design it so that the "right thing to do" would be the first thing you'd try to do, to make it truly intuitive.
We've sold the game and now it includes a tutorial with written explanations of what to do. In my view, the tutorial is unnecessary, because it's far nicer to just show the level and have the player figure out what the game is about intuitively.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#8Alternative title: Building single screen casual games.
This. The continuous push to make everything easy (as in gameplay and also learning) is annoying. Not all games have to be simple. I believe games have huge potential for teaching problem solving and systematic thinking, but by dumbing them down were partially eliminating this. The ultimate example are mobile games. They optimized for profit by dumbing them down and adding addictive, simple gameplay loops. They also…
The problem is not only have the people made their money, but the population has moved on to the next shiny dumbed-down thing. So while I agree with you, I don't know how to change it when everyone involved seems to have an incentive to keep things as-is.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#9Alternative title: Building single screen casual games.
This. The continuous push to make everything easy (as in gameplay and also learning) is annoying. Not all games have to be simple. I believe games have huge potential for teaching problem solving and systematic thinking, but by dumbing them down were partially eliminating this. The ultimate example are mobile games. They optimized for profit by dumbing them down and adding addictive, simple gameplay loops. They also…
No, this has nothing to do with simplifying games. Complex games can be intuitive and build up complexity as the player learns.
Take something like Civilisation. You don't need hours of tutorial to play the game. As the game progresses, it becomes more and more complex, but you start with 2 units, no enemies and no technology. After you build a city, technology is introduced. As you start exploring, enemies are introduced.
If civilisation threw new players into a typical midge scenario, players would need to read manuals and use tutorials and spend quite some time getting an overview of the current state.
Even complex games can start with the player playing a game.
Re: Building games that can be understood at a glance
#10One of the most helpful UI/UX articles I have read from the perspective of helping me design my products. I've read other articles that say the same thing, but this clicked for me.