Being the sole artist at Denki meant (awesome) visual responsibility for every aspect of each game -- including HUD/UI and Information design.
And, man, is information design hard.
Communicating what is important to the player without interrupting or disrupting the playscape is a real art.
Even the performance of text or titles -- does the score scale up when it rises? Does the title slide in from the sides? Does the health amount need to stay onscreen at all times? Does it need to be a number or a bar? What colour bar?
I've had mixed success across our games, and have never really nailed the HUD stuff in terms of elegant aesthetics, but hopefully its all functional if nothing more. That's in large debt to Gary our deisgner, who would always protoype a layout as close to final as he could.
The following images are from the unreleased Rapid Defence Force -- more on it HERE -- and detail the set up screen before a skirimish. It had to convery a LOT of information in a single screen.
Some initial thinking...
Gary's final layout...
My passes on those...
The final one.
Thanks for having a look. There's more on Rapid Defence Force: HERE.
