Game News DoubleBear Reveals Dead State GUI

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Tags: Dead State; DoubleBear Productions

It's Design Update Monday over at DoubleBear. Today they're discussing the user interface (the HUD, sub-menus, etc.).

This week, it’s time to show off a little more of what’s going on in our game these days. Let’s take a look at the GUI… FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

But first, let’s examine the process of how we got there. Our GUI starts with design. Design outlines all the key features of the GUI, what’s going in which GUI, how important each feature is, what our art theme is going to be, and the layout. We then take all of that and we mockup a concept of the GUI, which is a very rough idea of what design needs before art makes its final suggestions.

The layout of your main GUI is of critical importance. A good GUI isn’t going to save a bad game, but a bad GUI can cripple a good game. The GUI needs to do the following:

-Draw attention to important information.

-Be laid out in a sensible way to allow players to jump in (*it helps if it borrows from other games in the genre for familiarity).

-Allow access to important actions and sub-menus without relying exclusively on hotkeys.

-Not be too noisy or take up too much screen real estate.

-Relay tactically sensitive information in an immediate and logical way.

-Have a consistent theme.

Once the designers finish the GUI mockup, we turn it over to art. In our pipeline, we have recently added a very talented GUI artist to work on the many different screens we have. Oscar (our lead artist) and both Annie and I have given several rounds feedback to get the GUI just right to balance design, functionality, and artistic/readability needs of the GUI. Additional testing of the GUI will tell us if we need to make any further changes.

They also have a few screenshots of the fancy new GUI, one of which I cheekily attached to this here news post!

Read the full update here!

Looks ok, all though I expected a bit more in terms of the coolness factor.

But everything is pointing at a good turn based game. And I already more or less decided that I will pledge for Dead State, if it's 20$ish.

here is another screenshot from the Design Update

Very nice. Hopefully they will not screw this up like AoD. I need to see more, though, my 'faith' was really shaken by how poorly they handled the demo for AoD.

Hurry up and Kickstarter it.

No, as an indie team it's better if they take their time to build up stuff to show. I don't know if Brian Mitsoda has the same star power as Schafer, Fargo or Avellone.

Anyway, UI looks pretty cool. Interesting that they don't have an Intelligence or Luck stat.

I think after messing around for much too long, they are doing it right now, preparing a convincing presentation until they start.

On the character screen, it looks to me like there's room for 2 additional Stats and 4 more Perks.

This. Really looking forward to it - from all the info I've gathered there is really nothing that let's me have second thoughts so I just hope it gets done.

In the meantime there is a the new choice of games game, Choice of Zombies

Looks like they have a fair bit to show for kickstarter. From the trickle of screens I've seen here, I would throw money at this game If i had any to throw around. They may not get millions, but they could easily get a few hundred thousand.

This just looks awful. Honestly.

I am not sure a UI that looks like I'm shuffling papers on a desk is exactly ideal for a zombie strategy RPG-
could they not be looking at the UI for "What Remains?" and making it a little bit more interesting?

This is intensely dull, some ripped yellowing paper, index cards, paper clips. This is a day in the fucking
office for me.

If they wanted to go with this style, why not an interactive GUI which looks like an open manila folder
containing a dossier on each character, where you have to change pages, or where everything is
neatly aligned. There's also so much unused screen real estate there, large sections of nothing,
where we just see desk, and then all the perks and stats crammed together as icons.

Yeah, it's just a mockup anyway.

The combat/world GUI looks great. If the Kickstarter convinces me this isn't vaporware, I'll pledge.

Yeah, name dropping Fallout, worked for Brian Fargo and I've seen lots of VtM Bloodlines fans commenting on Youtube...

This. Not because I want to upload my mug, but because I want to upload porn actress' pics to female portraits. Male? whatever you want, chap.

*Updated version* (same on next page)

The damn black box could be used as text-display, ala Fallout2 style.

Judging by some project that got funded for Kickstarter they only need Annie showing and Brian smiling, add some smooth talk and they will not even need to show concept art.
Couldn't be enough for the hundreds of thousand tho.

Looks great! What an exciting period! Can't wait to play all these games!

I like the look of it a lot. The 3D scene does look a bit stiff, but they got the colors right. Things pop out sufficiently but everything is one style. Much color in a subtle way. I also like the colorfulness of the character screen. It's refreshing to see that in a hardcore RPG with an otherwise serious tone.

Color shmolor. It's indie. The gameplay mechanics is what will decide the game's fate.

That's pure genius. From which game did you take it

But don't you know today games take much longer to make, and such a game with such an UI would take at least 30 Million and 6-10 years to make today! Just look at the many years the 1.13 community put in for the new inventory system.
Therefore we must settle with totally simplified systems today. And did I forget, people are suckers for change, and hate the old things they have seen before. One must never copy the old interface for a 10 old game, even if it was perfect.

What a pointless post I just made

The GUI lacks nerve endings. It causes a loss of arousal when our eyes just want to wander into the information but instead are expected to slow down to see the numbers correctly. Poor mental attitude by the designer. Any end user will not feel developer's system adequately approached the needs of a gamer. Classic error. DoubleBear I have just one tip for you. You are overlaying mechanical garbage instead of ecstasy on our screens. Grow up so you don't embarrass legitimate indies like shihonage.