evaluation

in this project we were asked to desighn and make a user interface but because of time constraints noone had to make them in the end as there wasnt enough time because of other things that were happening at the time, but designing the interfaces still gave us valuable experince in what we had to look or and think about when we have to design one for games in the future, it was useful to think about the questions that we should ask when we are designing the interface as it helps you to structure what you are going to do for it instead of just going off and coming up with a design without thinking about it, even though we had to change the project it was good as it gave us more time to think about these questions and put more thought into our designs and we will be learning how to put them into a game later on it was also good to relearn how to use photoshop again aswel, i though that learning this was useful and will help us in the future and i am quite pleased with my final design as i thought about the questions and took them into consideration such as dyslexia i havent put any words into it and with colour blindness i made sue that i could still see everything and that it was alright for normal people aswell.

ui development

this is my final user interface designi have taken parts from the other interfaces that i designed that i thought worked well and put them into this one i have included a scrolling compass at the top i originaly had it as just the bar but in dark areas it would have been hard to see so i added a transparent white box around it to highlight it, for the weapon and item selection i have used a rotating semi circle design in the bottom corners so not to distract the player from the main game the currently selecte weapons and items are in the larger section of the wheel.

this is the design i had before my final design it is similar but i had the wheels in the bottom only show the current item and the compas doesnt have the blackboarder around the white.

this is another design that i made that gave me the idea of having the wheels in the bottom with th items and weapons for the compas i had a radar but as i am designing for an aztec level i thought the radar wasnt inkeeping with the theme so i desided to get rid of it








this is one of the designs where i desided to put in a compass at the top i also added hexagon shaped weapon selection in the bottom but they looked too out of place maybe they would have worked well in a futuristic themed area but i wasnt doing that so i replaced them with the selection wheels as i thought they had  better feel

crystal maze cont.

9.the crystal maze has pre set zones based off of the television program and will have their preset items in them such as the ocean zone is based off titanic so will be set out like a luxury cruise liner.

10. the target audience for the crystal maze game will be anybody that used to enjoy the program and anyone that enjoys survival shooter games.

the crystal maze

The crystal maze was a British made game show created in the 1990's to compete with the french game show fort boyard as the English version could not be filmed due to trouble getting the set so chatsworth television came up with the idea of the crystal maze based loosely off the same concept as fort boyard but instead of a set time they played for time crystals where at the end of the zones they reached the crystal dome where all the time crystals equated to 5 seconds of time each and the contestants had to get as many gold tickets as they could whilst avoiding the silver.

for the start of the project we have been asked to come up with ten questions relating them to the crystal maze game and the UI and answer them,
1.what the zones look like to design the interface around them
2.what information the interface should have in it i.e. health, ammo, map of the zone.
3.what is the crystal maze.
4.what is a UI and how does it work.
5.how does dyslexia affect someones user interface.
6.how does colour blindness affect someones user interface.
7.what makes a good user interface and what makes a bad one.
8.how is it integrated into the game, i.e. does it animate.
9.what stuff goes in the zones.
10.what is the target audience for the game.

 1.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/crystal-maze/screenshots/gameShotId,217253/

 different pictures of the zones of the crystal maze including, Medieval, Aztec, Industrial, Futuristic and Ocean these images are to give me ideas of how the zones looked and ho i might style my interface around them.

2. this is the map layout for the crystal maze from series 4 and on they replaced the industrial zone with the ocean zone in this seriesyou may need something like this or of the individual sections so that the player knows where they are and can find their way around the level. the interface should also contain what weapon you are using your ammo for that weapon if it applies the current zone that you are in and your health or lives in some form.

4. a user interface is the on screen information relating to the character and the game including where the player is what weapons they are carrying their health and a minimap.

5.to make sure that people with dyslexia dont have trouble with the interface you should make sure that you limit the amount of words in it and if you do have words you should try not to make them too long or crucial to the game just have the name of the items.

6.to make sure that people with color blindness can play the game you should avoid having colours that get mixed up alot together such as red and green and light blue and light green mainly it would be nearly impossible and very boring to try and make the colours so that everyone can be use to it.

7. user interfaces should relate to the game that you are playing so having loads of boxes for an mmo on the bottom of the screen like in world of war craft is ok because you can customise them to have as many as you need and in that type of game you may need something accessed quickly,

whereas a first person shooter game should be less cluttered so that it immerses you more and so that the hud doesnt get in your way usually just consists of a gun in the corner with your ammo and a mini map,


then you get games such as final fantasy where the game world has no hud on screen but when you get into a battle the attacking hud comes up with the health and attacks.

you also get huds that are built into the game world such as the spartan helmet in halo which has the ammo map/radar, health  built into the game world so we are seeing everything on screen that the character sees

8. most ui's are animated in some way whether it is the weapon changing or the ammo going down your health depleating or the mini map moving so i will probably have to have mine animated in some way.

9. the crystal maze