Any good links or write ups on usability in games?

witnessmenow

Hey Guys,

In my game at the moment I am struggling a little bit what what I want to do menus.

I feel my controls once the game starts are fine, but I wonder what is good practices for getting instructions across to the user?

Also is there good ways of doing the flow of menus? The game is intended to use both controllers and touch screens depending on the users setup.

Thanks

Kilgore__Trout

Are you looking to add a simple tutorial for gameplay, or provide user with info on what the various settings within the menus do, or is it more the layout of menus?

witnessmenow

Both!

I currently have a team select screen, where players drive into an area to decide what side they are on, traditionally this is down by moving a controller Icon to left or right e.g. Fifa

On this screen I would like to let people know the controls, but I also dont want to make that screen too complicated!

And also just the general layout of a good menu, I need to design and develop one that works with controllers, touch screens and a mouse so it makes it a little bit more complex!

Steviemoyne

What about an interactive tutorial the player can choose to play (I like those myself) where you can choose to play the tutorial and it presents you with a prompt, then you try out the instructions on the prompt...when you complete the instructions the next prompt appears and you do those instructions...rinse and repeat until you finish the tutorial.

For your game in question you could start off with just the player car on the screen and the ball (for a movement tutorial), next one could be a 1v1 against AI (can't quite remember if it was your game that has AI), [insert any other tutorials here] next might be a final "test" of the player against teams of team AI.

Or just have a "How to play" section on the menu that contains a full breakdown on how to play. They can then choose that menu rather than say a "Play" option to view the controls if they are unfamiliar.

EDIT: Prompt is a better word to use than menu for the top half, edited to reflect.

witnessmenow

Yeah, you see I'm trying to strike the balance with giving the never-look-at-a-tutorial guy the info they need on a screen that will need to see anyways, and help out the doesnt-play-too-many-games guy. But a separate tutorial to go into more detail for the less experienced person maybe the way to go. The majority of people do not read instructions unless they are in their face in my opinion, so I think a separate screen with the instructions on it would not be looked at much.

To be honest the game is simple to control, people who are used to video games would pick it up without any instructions (other than the handbrake maybe, as its impact is less obvious)

Kilgore__Trout

Had a look at the team setup screen in your project post. It's clean looking and nicely laid out. Not sure if you need a tutorial/help screen beyond this. Curiousity will probably get your players to try out the handbrake. Looks like you have different game modes too, so not sure if this requires explanation.

If you feel it would be good to add, either of the options (tutorial level, help screen) would suffice. If adding a video isn't a problem (and it might be, given the range of resolutions you have to cater for) this could be an option too.

If you do go for a tutorial level to guide players through the basics, I'd be inclined to add it as a separate button on the main menu: New Game, Tutorial, Options, Exit, as the length of each game is short, and making them selected whether they want to play the tutorial each time they start a game would become an annoyance.

Adding an interactive tutorial should only increase code complexity slightly, could be built into your main game, with a bool to distinguish between tutorial and live game. Just a list of instructions and checks that the user has completed the required actions.

Just based on the existing layout of your screens, I'd say you have a good eye for it. Can't really offer any suggestions for making menus, beyond the obvious steps of writing down all the options you have at each part of the game, main menu, in game, and then trying to figure out where the hell to put them in : )

As for catering your menus to different control types, I'd guess mouse and touch are fairly similar in how they are set up (haven't worked with smartphones/tablets). Been thinking a little about controller menus. Probably easiest to restrict them to either an array or 2d array "shape", and use a field to store an int for the button that is currently selected, (like 0: tutorial, 1: new game, 2: options, 3: exit) and then adjust the number when the player moves the d-pad (adjusting the array x/y), and call a method based on the selected int when they "press" the button.

Haven't implemented this, so there may be problems with covering all input types (and it may be completely daft)