The Great Mini Map Controversy of Ought Five.
Designing the Galactic Civilizat
Designing the Galactic Civilizations 2
User Interface. Part 2:
The Great Mini Map Controversy of Ought Five. |
It seams odd to me that we are nearing our first beta
for Galactic Civilizations 2 and I am only now on Part 2 of designing
the interface. This is for a few reasons. I have been buried under the
task itself, as well as 16 hundred other little projects that I keep
trying to find time to do; and because it has been going relatively
smoothly, making it not quite so interesting to write about.
This week I did however have some "trauma". And it all boiled
down to the aspect of the MINI Map, in the main UI of the game. |
|
The problem started when we realized
that we needed to place the MINI map view buttons on the main UI, rather
then in a popup, which is what I was thinking of from the beginning.
This will save the player 1 click every time they want to change the
view of the Mini Map. This is great for game play, but not so great for
my UI.
So I start trying to figure out where we are going to fit our
buttons; the problem is compounded when we realize we have 9 buttons in
GC2 as opposed to 6 in GC1. Quickly I realized that it is going to look
like poop, and might cause some hit detection problems if buttons
overlap the map. This will not do.
What happened next is what became painful. Someone said "You could
fit the buttons on fine if the MINI Map was a square". Ok so I'm
paraphrasing but it was something like that. Now this is a long
standing issue in GC2's UI, and I have to admit a sour point for me. A
SQUARE MINI MAP. For all the hard core gamers who would play the game if
it was X's and O's my reluctance to change the game back to a
Square Mini map will seem odd if not downright foolish. But I do have
my reasons. Let me explain.
First let me take the side of the Square Map people and admit some
of the strong points:
1) The Map in GC1 was Square, people are used to it that way.
2) It would allow for more buttons to be placed around it without
hit detection problems.
3) Most Strategy games do it that way.
Now let me defend myself and the beauty that is the rotated
(and slightly squished) mini map.
1) We end up with a larger Mini Map, that takes up less or the same
amount of the screen.
2) We are making a 3D game, and the aspect of all of our default
views in the game are rotated. So our MINI map should reflect the
default views.
3) Sure lots of other games use a square; do we want to just be
like every other game? And beside it looks cool rotated. |
Our Map needs buttons:
Our Aspects don't match.
Now we have buttons and Matching Aspects:
 |
|
Now these are not the official debate
points we had, and the truth is everyone had good reasons for wanting
the map their way. But it is my job to be the annoying "artist" and make
the programmers life's a living hell. And I still say that it looks
better this way.
In the end, and after a night of trying to
find a place for the new buttons I came up with a solution that I
think everyone likes. At least for now. Now comes the real test: The
Beta. Lets see what the users think; they get the veto one way or the
other.
I will admit, this is not so much a Great Controversy, but hey, I
make games for a living how bad can it be.  |
"Final" Button Layout.
 |