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Category Archives: UI
Horizon Zero Dawn's weird weapon system
Horizon Zero Dawn limits you to four weapons on your character at a time – but you can swap them out for extra weapons in your inventory at any time. Eh?
Horizon Zero Dawn lets you carry multiple weapons in your inventory. I think it's six or eight.
However during gameplay, you can only carry four of those weapons. This isn't a true limitation though, because at any point you can pause the game, go into your inventory and swap them.
Thus, in practical terms you have access to any of your weapons at any time, but only if you go through the rigmarole of inventory management.
Why have the inventory stage at all? By letting me swap quickly between any weapon as you're fighting, you'd encourage people to experiment in gameplay.
This entry was posted in game design, Gaming, Sony, UI and tagged guerilla games, horizon zero dawn, ps4 on 19/08/2017 by Idgaf.
Switch Mario Kart has a cluttered minimap
I played a Switch for the first time today. Mario Kart. The on-screen minimap is cluttered and doesn't need to be. I hope there's an option to change it.
I played a two-player VS AI using the Switch as the screen. We had a three-player game, against AI. Both were league races on a variety of tracks.
In both modes the minimap was in the centre of the screen, so everyone could see it.
Problem 1 –
Because it was shared, it didn't rotate according to my position. It's easier to follow a map it turns and orients itself in the direction you're travelling. This shared map was confusing because I was constantly having to re-orient it in my head.
Not the game's fault. I can't think of an easy solution to having a map that's supposed to rotate to show four players' positions. But the fact it didn't move was compounded by…
Each player had a large icon on the map, so you could see people's position. But as players bunched up, which was all the time, it was hard to pick out your position from the group.
In a game that's split across AI/humans, I don't care about AI positions on the map. It doesn't matter much if I beat the AI, but it matters if I beat my friends. I hope the game has an option to toggle whether I want to see everyone, nobody, AI or humans, then other players or friends.
Pushing that idea farther, there's an argument that in racing games in general we don't need to see players' positions on the minimap.
Firstly, the map becomes less useful the longer you play. You get used to tracks and stop relying on the map for information about turns and straights.
Second, if end up behind someone am I not going to overtake them? What does the map add to my decision making in this situation? (See above for decisions on when to overtake.)
Maybe it would be useful if they player on the map had a weapon and it was shown on the map, so I could know what to expect. Or if I had a limited turbo boost and wanted a better idea of when to pop it. (But again see two paragraphs up.)
But that's not most racing games. So exactly what information do we need to see on a minimap?
This entry was posted in game design, Gaming, Nintendo, Switch, UI, Uncategorized and tagged co-op, map, Mario Kart 8, multiplayer, Nintendo, Switch, UI, UI design on 29/05/2017 by Idgaf.