Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FiGuRe 6.8
In this example of a main menu, the player is provided with
information about how to play the game before they choose a gameplay mode.
Figure 6.9 shows another main menu example. This is a casual HOG. The main
menu gives access to certain features such as selecting the player, a clickable
link to the designers (Star Mountain Studios), the Options button, and of course
Play! The name of the game,
Kotsmine Hills,
is etched into the tombstone, giving
the player a pretty good indication that this game will be a bit spooky—albeit
spooky fun.
The main menu is an important center point for the designer to work with.
Like good web pages, main menus should make features easy to see and under-
stand and contain graphics and/or animation that help brand the game. The
moment any navigation screen—especially the main menu—becomes so com-
plicated that the player can't understand how to use it, your game is likely to be
discarded.
if reviewers include
a graphic from a
game, they often
choose the main
menu because it pro-
vides the look of the
game and additional
information.
