User-Interface

Start Screen Level 1 Settings Screen User-Interface types I have chosen to represent diegetic, non-diegetic, and spatial user interface elements in my game. These elements were a bit tough to make using this engine. Stencyl was ridden with bugs and errors that plagued my entire development process. Between sessions errors came up that were bordering on driving me insane. Things began to not work when in the previous session everything was working properly, that being said lets dive into my elements. Spatial   For spatial I made a score counter that keeps track of the players score. As the player destroys the enemies on the screen they gain score. And If i could Im thinking a cool animation would be as the score increasing the number flip like how number flip on a old digital clock. Theres different ways I can take this score tracker, though im not sure what/how exactly I want to approach it. Diegetic Now for diegetic I made the setting page a cockp...

The 7 Stages of Action There are seven stages of action needed to take into account when talking about usability. Listing all seven stages Goal, Plan, Specify, Perform, Perceive, Interpret, and Compare I will explain how they relate to my health bar and my blood splash in my Unreal Engine 4 prototype.  Goal The goal of my prototype was to develop a creative idea for a crazy themed FPS game. The need for a health bar and damage overlay is essential in an first person shooter, how else will the player know their health unless told by the game in some form. So I created, instead of blood, laughing that pops up on the screen the more you take damage. Furthermore creating a my version of a health bar, a craz-o-meter, which when taking more and more damage will turn bar starting in green more towards the yellow, orange, and finally to red.  Plan The action of my prototype is to display how taking damage effects the player. Now since this is only a prototype there is...

Titan User-Face The element of the titan user face I will be writing about is the lines that indicate to a pilot (player) that they are inside the titan. The black lines that "separate" the screen are there to add to the effect on the player that they are inside a three story mech of destruction. That element is diegetic, the character in the game world is able to see those lines just as the player is. What is non-diegetic though is all the elements boxed in red. Those aren't visible to the character in game but is visible to the player giving them information. Though much of what is on screen could be considers spatial and diegetic, the pilot (in game character) needs that information to tell them what is happening. Such information would be the mini map in the top left, the power core level which is the blue bar in the bottom left, much of what is in the Titan fall screen/user interface is diegetic and spatial. 

Flow Diagram The flow diagram I made for my game prototype is very basic because overall the game itself is very basic in terms of screens and gameplay. The game and user interface is designed around the mechanics in the game. The player being able to click on blocks and break them causing things to fall. As of right now there is two playable levels that are available, more can be made just with increasing difficulty and or added features.   Wire Frame   I have numbered one through five detailing the components of the screen. Two through four are all "buttons" in a way where the player has to click to destroy the breakable objects to release the button to fall into the end zone labeled five. This is repeated in gameplay levels in which the players goal is to get the blocky character into the end zone to win/ go to the next level. 

Ideas and Inspirations The idea I'm going for in this new/innovative screen for Space Invaders is inspired by two games I've played before : No Man's Sky and Elite Dangerous. New Space Invaders UI/Home In both games there is a component in which the player sits in the Ship and is able to look around "interact" with the different buttons and panels within the cockpit. I'm still debating whether or not this game would be a touch game (Phone game) or a game that is controlled with an external device. Though for this I will be going down the path of external device. The player will be able to look around the cockpit and access the panels via moving the camera to focus in on certain panels. So the player would be in first person view while in the cockpit and after starting the game the perspective would change to the classic Space Invaders view of top down/Third person. Animations I figured that when the player looked at a panel within the ship the anim...

Chris Lenhart Flow Charts  :         The application Clock on Iphone has roughly five main screens. Those being World Clock, Alarm, Timer, Bedtime, and Stopwatch. All Screens but Stopwatch had some sort of settings/editing page that could only be gotten to by going to their respective screen first. In terms of Flow I think that there is a good balance within the app, it isn't overly complex with where you can go from screen to screen but it makes sense as to where you would go to get to settings on the five main screens. Personally I use the Clocks app all the time for almost all of its screens besides Bedtime, and I believe that many other people use the app just as much as I do using nearly all of its functions. The fact that no one talks about how easy the flow is on the app means that the flow is good. The everyday person shouldn't pick up on that it should be expected from the app. Discover-ability  :         The tool I'm go...