Topic

the eye / I

playing glitch for the first time was an overwhelming experience. unfortunately this was not entirely a positive thing.

while playing, especially at first, i found myself struggling to follow the interface. even after playing for a few hours it was just too difficult to keep up.

over on the right is the communications panel, with a million things happening at once. shifting panels, communications, notifications, quest log and so on. there's also the list of "states" [buzzed, smashed etc.] when present.

to the left are the local and personal activity updates, for lack of a better term, who is entering and exiting the world, various effects on you, item feedback and so on.

i know this kind of interface is not uncommon. i've seen it used especially often in PC games, though i'm not a "PC Gamer" by any stretch. i imagine that following the information flow in and out of various areas of the screen becomes an acquired still. it looked a bit similar to WoW screenshots i've seen.

that said, it was all very intimidating to me. tho i'm probably a wuss. whatever. i'll try to make a few concrete suggestions on how to fix some of the problems i had.

basically, i think more information should center around the avatar. when i eat something or tend something i'm usually doing it from a menu next to an item i'm standing next to or from my pack at the bottom of the screen. then i need to force my eyes to dart top left to see the consequences .. and quickly lest i miss it or am unable to read it fast enough.

what i would prefer is for such "consequence" messages to appear either above my character, or above the menu used to trigger the consequence.

i also died a couple time because the "energy" level was top left and i found that i was looking at my avatar and the landspace more and i simply wouldn't notice it going down. i would like it if as i became more tired i'd see the energy meter apear floating above my head. or maybe my avatar would start glowing red. or manga like sweat beads would appear.

i wouldn't even mind having the global chat or IMs floating above my head too. that's probably overkill, but i'll throw it out there anyway because the decentralization of all these alerts was really that intimidating to me.

anyway - if the mood, energy and alerts became "above head floaty things" or reflected by the appearance of the avatar itself, that would leave the top left to the pet rock [which i love] and XP bars. maybe the quest log could roll out when needed underneath the pet rock, in the top left corner where the activity alerts currently pop in and out.

keeping the eye focused in one place would really help a lot. so much is going on in the periphery that i think it would pay to rethink the layout a bit to make the locus of attention the avatar itself. maybe item effects could manifest as thought balloons or something. i dunno. i shouldn't get so specific i guess .. just that the locus of focus should spiral out from around the avatar. maybe.

ugg what i'm suggesting is probably impractical or would look weird in practice. it's only feedback tho, it doesn't have to be good, right? : [

Posted 3 years ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • this is a bit unrelated but i am so used to playing "mario" platformers that the bottom and side panels weirded me out a little, in that they are solid, opaque "frames"

    normally in mario games the level extends to the edges of the screen and the items you have, lives, coins, points and so on float "above" the level, not in panels. i think this makes the levels seem more expansive, dramatic.

    maybe if the game word could be seen scrolling beneath the pack of behind the chat panels? it would cost some pixels i guess, and i don't know how it would impact game performance either, and it is really a nitpicky, cosmetic concern. but something in me thinks that having the gameworld expand to all edges of the viewport feels more natural? less like a nuclear reactor control panel? i have no rational reasons for this, only hunches and guesses, probably bad ones : [
    Posted 3 years ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I generally agree with Bryan. Specifically with the information, I gave up on following the info that came up in the upper left. But this caused me to be regularly switching between the Activity Log and Global Chat, which was also the only reason to switch to my mouse, making it that much more cumbersome. If they are all kept together hotkeys for switching panels would be great.
    Posted 3 years ago by Rogue Drone Subscriber! | Permalink
  • hotkeys are great, but if they are practically required to keep up with the gaming/socializing experience then a lot of people ar going to feel excluded and just stop playing after trying it once.
    Posted 3 years ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "i would like it if as i became more tired i'd see the energy meter apear floating above my head. or maybe my avatar would start glowing red. or manga like sweat beads would appear."

    This is a great idea -- if the avatar's stomach, for instance, glowed faintly with the color of its energy level, and if it got dangerously low the sweat beads or spirally lines could appear. If these were visible not only to the player but to others, it would encourage sharing food.

    You could make a similar mechanism for mood, too.
    Posted 3 years ago by Peter Verona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yeah .. it'd help for people watching too .. since you'd see the state of other people beyond running and jumping.

    maybe if they were smashed you'd see weird swirls above their head or if they were stinky it'd be stink lines. or they could change colour to green.

    trying to think of relatively simple ways to portray "state" without requiring complex rendering or animation. i think it is possible.
    Posted 3 years ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • bumping this thread with this thread:

    alpha.glitch.com/forum/idea...

    I like a lot of these ideas...I think the avatar is so much the focus of the player's attention, it could easily impart all kinds of information.
    Posted 2 years ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i still agree with myself 288 days later.
    Posted 2 years ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with you too. I always die because I miss the 'you're gonna croak' information- my avatar looks just fine so I don't expect him to be near death.
    Posted 2 years ago by Cefeida Subscriber! | Permalink