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[JWK5]

Is there any way you can make a palette of all of those colors, or perhaps a non-jpg version so I can get it myself?

Here is a .PNG of the colors arranged in a palette (sets of 5, 3 sets to a row):



You can also download the .PAL palette file here.

[thatshelby]

Thanks a ton homeboy.

[seagaia]

but it is jpg compressed and that means aaaaaaaaaaa.

Can you screen capture as a png?


Thanks for these menu palettes and gathering this all in one place...about to work on some menus myself!

[Pietepiet]

I like how they treat their menus as being just as much an art asset as their character sprites and other graphics. On another note, more color schemes:



(Right-Click -> Open Image for actual size)

I love you for this.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Persona 3+4's GUI stuff is pure sex.

I designed the user interface for Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, which was a massive task, and gave me a whole new appreciation for the task. It was interesting choosing which battles of implementation to fight, but also making sure that no-one tried to introduce conflicting paradigms into the controls or menus.



The most complex part was probably the Firework Show Editor, which worked a bit like Adobe Premier or Garageband.

[ortoslon]

[brettchalupa]

This thread is super awesome and useful. Thanks everyone for what they've posted.

Radiant Historia is a game that always struck me with impressive menus and UI. I think a game that handles UI super simply (and maybe sometimes not so well) is the Dragon Quest games.

I think DQIX stepped it up a little bit, as the UI seemed clean and worked well enough.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Dragon Quest's GUI is really nice and clean. I'm a big fan of classic console GUIs with a limited amount of information on the screen. I can't enjoy 'western RPGs' because of the teeny tiny GUIs with lots of different information going on, such as those seen in Dragon Age and every MMORPG.

[Azure Lazuline]

This thread is awesome. Menu design is still something I need to work on a bit more. (And +1 for the Swordcraft Story, even if the menus there aren't anything special.) Most of my favorite menus have already been mentioned, but I'd like to point out Battle Network again, since I think it looks really nice and is easy to navigate too.

Knights in the Nightmare also has a really cool theme for GUI elements, really over-the-top stylish (like the rest of the game):

[C.A. Sinner]

[JWK5]

It's from some game called "Call of Thrones" that I happened across as I was browsing google. I am not a big fan of the color scheme (there is a lot of competing colors going on there) but I like how clean and readable the layout is.



The Shining Force games always had nice menu layouts that were uncluttered and very readable, and they meshed well with the bright and upbeat graphics that the series had.

[Derek]

Blizzard always makes some attractive menus (Diablo 3):



Etrian Odyssey 2:

[JWK5]

BioShock had some really killer menus that not only were very readable but also fit the theme of the game really well.

[craigtimpany]

Which platform are you on?

Press X

Because most of those console JRPG UIs are built to solve the problem of not being able to display many kanji on an SD display.

Press X

If you're on PC, you can show a lot more text than that. For example, you don't need to abbreviate the stat names!

Press X

Also, if you really must print out dialogue glyph by glyph, crank up the rate. Everybody can read much faster than that.

[Azure Lazuline]

I'd just be very careful with assuming everyone has a huge monitor. The worst thing ever is when you can't read important stat info or dialogue. If you really must have tiny text in your game, at least give an option to make it bigger.

My personal rule is that it should be crystal clear on 1024x768, and at least readable on 800x600.