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[Orymus]

Hi all,

Trying to come up with something different to illustrate life as a series of icons.
Theme of the game revolves around light so I started with small Sun icons but it clashes with the mood which is somewhat dark / serious.
Any thoughts?

[SuspiciousSquid]

Maybe something like in Mario Sunshine, where you have it be a sun, but in a more 'Cryptic' or as a symbol, (Cant think of a better way of saying it, sorry) Like this

[Magurp244]

You could try colored balls of flame, which could be a representation of their "life force", or perhaps something with blood or some such.

[Orymus]

That sun is a tad too joyful. I tried making one of my own, and it ended up derailing from the artistic direction of the project and made it felt too "egyptian" in nature.
Thanks for the suggestion though!

Balls of flame could work, but trying to think how to represent that short of just having "red balls" there.
Blood was an idea to be used, but the best rendition of that I've was from Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen and though very cool-looking, I felt it was a bit ambiguous and it is a case where the UI wanted to be art and ultimately conveyed poorly its information, so I want something simpler in place where you can instantly understand by just glancing at it.

Appreciate the input, thanks!

[Rajah]

Maybe a glowing orb that glows less and less until you die ? You would need to show the progression, though, because glowing less wouldn't be enough, maybe the orb could crack, too, etc. What's the atmosphere of the game ?

[Orymus]

I'm hoping to achieve a level of clarity that goes beyond this. Cracks are still very subjective (how much life do I have left?). The intent is for the player to understand exactly how perilous an enemy is by the damage it deals to them and expose these numbers, but as icons.
I model this after ALTTP where each heart was actually 4HP, and the maximum level of detail were half-hearts which were 2HP per half.
(there's not quarter hearts visually, but if you take 2 quarter hearts damage, you would see the UI update to losing half a heart).

The mood of the game is a general sense of being lost which fosters exploration. Theme centered around being between two states (life and death for example) and the world is shaped accordingly. In a way, the world is much more like Majora's mask than Ocarina of Time for example.

[Pfotegeist]

think of a hang-man game. you know when you draw the whole thing he dead.

[JWK5]

Never mind all the other junk around it (this is just one of my idea spree sheets), well unless you see something else there you can use of course. Anyways, the basic idea I had going was to create hit point "flowers" and such that showed the exact health you have but in a more stylized way. So maybe that might be something you can work with (or not).

[SolarLune]

Wow, this is cool, JWK. Really interesting idea for the design of a GUI!

[JWK5]

Thanks!

I gave it a bit of thought and more in line with the OP's request, I had this idea. Obviously, it's not exact and the art is all scribbly-doodly, but hopefully you get the idea:



Basically, we incorporate the sun/light imagery into it via an eclipse.

[Orymus]

I like the crystals because you 'could' count them if you want, and it would return the correct result... worth looking into, thanks!