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[Martin 2BAM]

Hi,

I'm making a 2 to 4 local multiplayer game, and run into a recurring problem that I'm at loss with: Players do not understand (or rather I can't find a way to explain well) their current health and which weapon they picked up.

What I already have
There's a minimalistic UI to keep score, and I tried showing the weapon pickup there but it's useless as most of the time players are focusing on their character. Also there is a lot happening on the screen all the time, and that makes it harder to get a person's attention towards graphical feedback.
Also there is the issue of not overcharging the visual zone around the characters. It already has the remaining ammunition count around itself with little sticks (this feedback works fine)
There are generic sound effects but specific sound feedback could work for 2 players, but for 4 it can get messier.

Here's a screenshot to give you the general idea:



So the main problems are...

Health feedback
For games with insta-death (Nidhogg, TowerFall, Samurai Gunn, etc.) this is not an issue, but I think insta-death wouldn't work on my game for several reasons, including the amount of hazards and the general aesthetics (bleeding to death)

What I've already tried is making the characters blink red (faster for less health) together with a skull roughly 2x the size of the character gradually appearing behind it when you have less than half the total health.
Nobody gets it

Power up/Gun pickup
They show up in the UI for some seconds. But it's "far" from the players' line of sight.

A proposed possible solution would be to make the characters bigger, or maybe even just the guns comically disproportionate and big.

I'd appreciate any advice, ideas and/or examples from other games that do it right.
Thanks.

-Martin

[bombjack]

Hi,

it's maybe a stupid question but why not having a classic health bar justt above or below the player ?

You could have 2 lines: one for health and one for ammo.
Moreover you could add an icon diplaying the current weapon.

[Martin 2BAM]

It's not stupid

The health bar might work   Maybe also circular instead of a bar. I just want to avoid visual clutter.

The icon thing would take too much screen real state (specially for melee/approaches).

[ThemsAllTook]

It's pretty common to float a graphic of what was just picked up above the player's head for a second or so. If their eyes are elsewhere and they miss it, they'll still notice that something flashed above their character, and hopefully know to look at the UI that shows what they're holding. Pretty minimal clutter since it shows for such a short amount of time.

Not sure what to suggest for health other than the standard health bar. How is health in your game measured? If it's a small integer (less than 10 or so), you'd have the option of showing discrete units (usually hearts), which may be easier to read than an arbitrary percentage.

[Martin 2BAM]

It's fractional, but I like the discrete idea. I'll round them up to make them more readable.

Something like this maybe


What do you think?

[valrus]

Have your health be represented as the length of your main rotors.  Then when you lose it all your helicopter falls out of the sky.

[Martin 2BAM]

Hahaha, that would be fun but very unfair for the losing side!