Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
care about this, why is nothing happening? After boot, presumably
the first thing the player will see is the game's main menu in almost
every game project. Naturally, Skull Island follows this pattern.
Mindfulness at the Main Menu
The main menu is the gateway to your game. Have you ever seen a well-
designed amusement park or subway station? Where you need to go
is obvious and, ideally, inviting. If your game is complex enough that
it needs a separate tutorial menu option, then that is going to be the
second menu option. They should appear in this order: CONTINUE,
TUTORIAL, NEW GAME, OPTIONS. Anyone who works in
design outside of the games industry will know that things are often
ordered by the amount they are to be used. Ever notice that your turn
signal in your car is easier to access than your four-way or hazard
lights? There is a reason for that. Notice that your gearshift is more
accessible than the lever to pop your hood? There is a reason for that,
too. If we go back to our principle about assuming nothing about our
players, it is entirely possible that they don't even know how to navi-
gate the menu. For this reason, burying the tutorial three layers deep
inside of DLC and extras is a bad idea.
The main menu itself is going to teach our players. We are going
to model movement through the menu options with a subtle cue. We
will assume that there are bone minions wandering around in Escape
from Skull Island . One of those minions is going to walk in front of
the menu options in a parallax effect, and throw bones at the menu
options. he options will smack and crack as he hits them with pro-
jectiles, and then saunters off the screen. Why does this matter? Well,
we learned in Chapter 3 that the cognitive apprenticeship principle of
modeling makes us want to do things that another person has done.
In this case, without telling the player, the minion has indicated that
the menu options are interactive. When things touch these, some-
thing happens. Unfortunately, in keeping with our earlier principles
of cognitive load, we can't put something on the screen that says,
“Hey press WASD to move through menu options.” For this reason,
I am going to make any input other than WASD select the currently
highlighted menu option. Why should the player have to dig through
the keyboard commands? I am also going to make W, A, S, and D, as
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