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[ProgramGamer]

A thread was started earlier about level design, but I think there should be one for the design of user interface (UI) as well; especially after witnessing

video in which Piewds (yes PiewDiePie) gets broken by a game about building bridges. You can watch it, it contains way less screaming than normal PDP videos.

Also an opportunity to post about

.

[digsource]

I'd love to give an opinion but watching a PewDiePie video is just too much work.
I watched one once and just couldn't make it past 5 minutes.

Care to summarize his points?
I doubt he has any good points as far as interface, game and level designs though because he seems to be "playing" just for views.

As far as interface design goes...What do you mean?
Does interface include controls and in-game physics?
I have played several Super Mario World hacks that try to emulate Super Meat Boy and the games' physics and control responsiveness made the hack hard. It wasn't that the level designs were bad.

EDIT: Looked through the second vid and I think I get what you mean by interface. You mean the sum total verbal components of the main menu, options down to gameplay right? I agree. I have like 2 games that are like 80% complete but designing that component is pretty tough. You need your own way to hook them into actually playing the game upon opening your software. There's that last minute resistance for them to actually decide to play your game even if they've already downloaded it.

[diegzumillo]

Care to summarize his points?

"Wrhaaagh! stop breaking, bridge!"

Seriously though, I don't think he's dumb or incapable in any way. I think ProgramGamer is the one making the point that the interface is not doing its job, so regular users don't know what is wrong with their design and how to fix it.

I never gave too much thought on UI design though, I'm here expecting people to share their knowledge and sneakily absorb it all.

[Pfotegeist]

Abstraction and granularity is key for toolkit design.

The ludic interfaces (for game consoles) are complained about often, and the same might as well be for menus and GUIs. It's more about artistic license. Each player can judge if the "press start" splash screen is a waste of time on their own, or if the joystick is really worth the stress on their thumbs.

It is common to have one options menu at the front of the main menu, and a near duplicate options menu in-game so the player doesn't have to back all the way out of what they were doing to adjust the gamma or music volume. Options are extra important to PC users, because you can't listen to your music if the game is forcing music on you at the same time, and maybe the volume mixer doesn't work.

[DXimenes]

I've written a little piece about UI in our blog I while back, intend to writing Part 2 sometime.
http://devblog.kimericlabs.com/en/user-interface-pt-1/

[ProgramGamer]

As far as interface design goes...What do you mean?
Does interface include controls and in-game physics?
I have played several Super Mario World hacks that try to emulate Super Meat Boy and the games' physics and control responsiveness made the hack hard. It wasn't that the level designs were bad.

The UI is the component of the software that allows the user (player) to exert control over the game system. In a point and click, it would be your inventory and the cursor. In a text adventure game, it would be the console and the command line. In a platformer, it would be the controls of the game, and in an engineer simulator like piewds' bridge game, it would be the tons of unpalatable menus.

[digsource]

As far as interface design goes...What do you mean?
Does interface include controls and in-game physics?
I have played several Super Mario World hacks that try to emulate Super Meat Boy and the games' physics and control responsiveness made the hack hard. It wasn't that the level designs were bad.

The UI is the component of the software that allows the user (player) to exert control over the game system. In a point and click, it would be your inventory and the cursor. In a text adventure game, it would be the console and the command line. In a platformer, it would be the controls of the game, and in an engineer simulator like piewds' bridge game, it would be the tons of unpalatable menus.

Oh alright. As far as platformers, I still love the same old WASD IJKL (and its equivalent on your typical modern controller.) I tried adding Q and E as your L1 and R1 buttons and succeeded to a degree when emulating PSX/PS2 games.

I truly hate modern FPS games on controllers. Mouse and Keyboard all the way for me.
I like controls simple. There is this indie game called "Guns, Gore and Cannolli" which tried to combine FPS weapon select number controls with platforming and INDIVIDUAL BUTTONS for jumping, kicking, grenades and molotovs. Would have played well for a controller but it's too much work for keyboard. Contra or Super C is where it's at as far as run and guns. Point, shoot and jump. That's it.

Another HORRIBLE interface was Metro: Last Light. Everyone was used to having to select weapons individually then firing but they decided to add a "use" key to tap rapidly during action sequences and a separate button for throwing knives. Game is easy but controls make it hard.

[digsource]

"Wrhaaagh!"

PewDiePie's life in a nutshell.

[ryansumo]

Here's a brief article about the UI of Dead Space, whose diegetic UI design is often hailed as the gold standard (I'd put Mirror's Edge in that category also) :

http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/31/4166250/dead-space-user-interface-gdc-2013

UI is a tricky thing though, and what works for one genre (third person shooter) is extremely hard to pull for another genre which which is more information intensive like strategy games.

[Pfotegeist]

@ryansumo thanks for the reminder about that kind of design. I think the appreciation of it mostly comes from the fact people like visual effects that trick them. Believing they experience what the character experiences more accurately is a great trick. It also negates ludic dissonance by removing screen clutter.

Here's another piece of a greater puzzle. Making games that behave more like professional tools without the complexity, the 3D bridge builder game was just not able to dumb itself down enough.

I believe fold-it attempted to create a UI that didn't appear to be too complex by making action more context sensitive, and then calculated the motions as they occur. A less remarkable design decision would have been to add the tools directly on the screen and then cancel inappropriate actions. Sometimes a program won't lend itself so easily to experimentation, like many other games, Foldit begins by giving you a series of training missions to complete. I can see here on the first level the HUD has limited the availability of tools to just a reset button. They then softball pitch the idea that more tools are better.