.
acctually i believe that if you attach a demo of it, i would be easier to know if the button layout is good or bad.
It's graphic criticism not working and functionality criticism. He hasn't set the events for it.
Oh...:-[
Well then, all the graphics are well made.
And the controls, I believe those will be quite good, but as I said, I can't really know until I've tried it.
Hmm, it just feels a bit... cluttered. The different coloured asigned skills/items bit doesn't help. Maybe put the different HUDs in different corners of the screen, so they don't clash so much?
I think the idea is nice, but there's too much to see. You'll get distracted by all the numbers and letters while playing, or is that just me?
I'm personally fine with it. There ain't that much. Some stuff on the left (idk what that is so, lol)
Middle is overdrive bar (you don't want to go into the menu to check every time >_> ) along with hotkeys and a reminder of basic controls. That's good.
Right side simply shows HP, SP, and EXP.
Visually, I feel like the overdrive bar needs a bit of work. The shading is cool, but it looks too flat. Could use some gradient kind of thing. That's my opinion for now, but I have no idea how it'd look like so yeah.
Hm. I think my only criticism is that I'd rather see it look like all that stuff goes together besides the fact that it's all on the screen at the same time. There's too many colors and too many shapes. Something simpler or more sleek and with a monochromatic tone would be nice.
Quote from: grafikal on September 01, 2009, 11:16:59 PM
Hm. I think my only criticism is that I'd rather see it look like all that stuff goes together besides the fact that it's all on the screen at the same time. There's too many colors and too many shapes. Something simpler or more sleek and with a monochromatic tone would be nice.
I agree with graf, this looks really Mog/XAS and I wasn't a fan of that HUD either.
It looks too busy and distracting.
Here's my example of your HUD.
You don't need a billion letters and buttons floating around to designate what does what. There are in-game tutorials for explaining that :)
Also, I didn't find the EXP bar really that helpful. It just added another cluttery object to fit in and another different color to mix with.
The overdrive bar here is one color, but that's not to say it can't change colors as it moves, but my intension was that the bar grows inwards from the sides and the vertical lines designate a new zone in the overdrive bar.
Having to know what characters have potions I find is extremely cluttery. I think it's useful to know what character is next in the line up to switch characters, but knowing what kind and how many potions they have is not.
I wasn't sure if this was your intent, but I thought it would be neat to display the weapon and shield the current party leader has equipped. It also designates the 'attack' and 'block' functions. Again, all you need a quick in-game tutorial that tells the player that this button does this and that button does that and they're good. Plus they can just reread it if they forget, but in most games it's extremely self explanatory.
Here's a higher resolution image (.png) of the HUD.
(https://rmrk.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi25.tinypic.com%2F2vd1gxt.png&hash=10b089144e2f6a6a5604beffcfe9a3a218bd0539)
Here's a kind of what it would look like when switching players:
(https://rmrk.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi25.tinypic.com%2F2jchqj6.gif&hash=4b76dab4aa2fbbb51472fdaa7d117dae9ff2fa74)
Notice that each sprite (in the left corner) becomes more and more opaque as they near becoming party leader. Party leader is 100% opaque, next is 60%, then 40% and then 20%.
Also, my last note, is that your button layout is really awkward. It doesn't feel natural to have my hands like that on a keyboard.
This is only how I think the layout should be:
(https://rmrk.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi30.tinypic.com%2F346p5w1.jpg&hash=e0950baa34fef9478b527be802669a3c62ec5918)
Action Buttons:
Q, W, E, R, T
Attack:
X (or Z)
Defend:
z (or X)
Potions (in any order):
A, S, D (if there's a 3rd)
Overdrive:
SPACE
Menu:
SHIFT or ESC
Select/Accept:
ENTER
Deny/Cancel:
'
I think Tab is still a good choice to change party leader.
Also:
This HUD took me forever to do today .____.
Quote from: Kipe on September 06, 2009, 12:40:29 AM
The only thing I can't do, though, is have the HP/MP bars away from the edges like that. The reason is because I'm using the move picture command, instead of using 100 separate images for each 1% of HP (but I'll consider it). :-\
You don't have to make the HUD like that transparent. That way you can just slide the pictures. It doesn't even have to be a perfect bar like that, it can just be a block of color behind the HUD that you slide.
I'll be looking forward to your video :)
graf, nice work, great c&c, and I hope this game turns out well.