Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
well as the arrow keys, move through the menus. When all else fails,
the player will look to the keyboard for guidance, and there are no
clearer buttons on the keyboard than the arrows.
The continue screen is simply going to show the files to load, as you
might expect. Players will be able to load a file by pressing any input
other than the arrow keys, or W, A, S, D. The game will autosave for
the players and doesn't need to show them the autosave notice. It is
outdated, and hardware saves so blindingly fast and has such space
these days, there is no reason to show that notice anymore. Once
players hit the button to load the game, the loading icon will be in
line, with no separate loading screen. This isn't 1997; games don't take
more than a few seconds to load anymore. The notable exception here
should be when your game is enormous and has a lengthy install,
or harsh loading times, which of course is something that should be
fixed anyway. Attention is often time-limited, as we have talked about
throughout the topic, and every moment the player isn't playing or
doing something entertaining, you are losing him or her.
Designing an Excellent Character Select Screen
I am sure many of you have at some point in your career designed a
character select screen. In Escape from Skull Island , the player is able
to pick three party members. Two of them will be played by artificial
intelligence when they are not controlled by the player. To this end,
a character select screen will allow the player to cycle between differ-
ent characters and add them to his or her party before beginning the
game (see FigureĀ 7.4).
Consistent with our contiguity principle from ChapterĀ 6, all of the
information is located in the correct place to minimize cognitive load
on the player while selecting characters. The Z and X buttons move
the character selection between characters, while the C button adds the
character to the party. If the player doesn't add a character for more
than 30 seconds, any button other than Z and X will add the char-
acter to the party. Once the player has selected three party members,
the game starts. You will notice the placement of the Z and X buttons
in the image. When the player presses Z or X, the sound of a flip-
ping page is heard, and a new character is highlighted in the selection
area. The character's name is displayed. Once the character has been
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