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| Fundamentals of Game Design Journal Entry 24
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User interfaces are very important in strategy games, due to the large amount of controls available to the player they all need to be displayed clearly and they also need to be accessed quickly.
The RTS games Supreme Commander (supcom), and its standalone expansion Forged Alliance (FA) use radically different user interfaces. The supcom interface takes up a large portion of the screen, around about 30% of screen, so the amount game footage that is available to the player is very small. In terms of controls the interface is pretty good, all the building for a tech level are displayed in one section, with a bar to the left to switch between tech levels. The build queue is displayed below the list of buildings which allows for easy viewing of the queue. However the unit command bar (things like attack, defend, move to and patrol) are quite small and difficult to reach when you what to issue a command.
The FA interface is a greatly improved version of the interface in supcom. Unlike the supcom interface, the FA interface is semitransparent allowing to see what is going on under you control bar. The building bar has been change, instead on a big box that shows all the different building there is now a bar, that you have to scroll at lest once to see all the options, with the build queue below it. The command bar however is much better, it’s much larger, and its location is better suited for quickly issuing commands.
The commander upgrade tab is also much better in FA, in supcom once to selected a part to upgrade you couldn’t return to the build option for the commander unless you un selected him the reselected him. In FA you make move easily from the upgrade to the build options quickly and easily.
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Posted by Psiryu on 2008-05-26 21:38:45 | Rating: | Views: 33
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