UI, or user interface, is how the player can navigate the game. This can include the menus as well as the HUDs, heads up display, which displays information during gameplay.
Some games, such as social deduction can be very HUD heavy, while games like life sims don’t need them as much.
Social deduction games, such as Town of Salem, are games where a group of people has to work out who each other is, whether it be their alignment or what role they are, certain roles will not want to be detected and will have to lie to avoid being discovered.
Because of this most of the gameplay is done using discussion, Note-taking, and clicking around. So the game is almost entirely UI.
Life sims, such as Animal Crossing are very focused on the gameplay, interacting with characters, decorating certain areas, and buying and selling items. So, the UI often consists of very few things, only essentials, such as the time of day and inventory. In the case of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a lot of the menus are contained within an in-game mobile phone, where you use simple apps to navigate across many of the features.
Temple Clicker UI
I personally chose to do drawn icons, as this would create a unique look for my game and also be easier to look at instead of just a lot of monotonous text.
Since it was a temple clicker, which has an ancient roman theme I chose to keep to that.
When drawing I used a rough line art brush to give the icons an interesting texture that seemed rough like an old building might. When drawing the faces on the icons with faces I referenced the style of roman mosaics; the rounder face shape, the shape of the nose, and the almond eyes.
.
.
Leave a Reply