| Description | I took some screenshots to explain some of the GUI differences from AI war classic. I think you need to use AI war classic as a benchmark and ask yourself, is your current idea better? Why or why not? I have a bunch of comparison comments here that are meant to be helpful.
First a couple things, you need to play to two different audiences. new gamers and AI war classic gamers. There are a couple major gameplay changes that I don’t understand yet, such as the ark mechanic as it relates to defending old and taking new territory. Don't count out your classic players. They purchased your title in great quantities.
As you know, getting started on any project can be difficult. The opening screen that shows the logo needs to put the player in the mood. It’s also going to be your first impression. May I suggest something like a fade-in with some kind of demo battle going on in the background? This isn’t unheard of. Even classic games in the 80s had demo screens that showed the game in action. And make no mistake, while this is a strategy game, your players want shooty bang bang in space, so go on ahead and make it a battle scene. Should be a scriptable thing and fading from black shouldn’t be that hard. I also think that the AI War caption might need something like a neural network overlay or something. If there’s time.
I included some screenshots of your original opening screen, which I like better for a couple reasons. One is the minimalist GUI design that neatly shows all the buttons, a community tooltip, and a short setting of the scene. It’s a text-based setting of the scene, but it’s better than what you have now. The only thing that would make the classic opening screen better is some shooty bang bang.
Let’s move on to the game settings screen. This is probably the worst screen for classic players returning to your new title. I can tell you that a classic player is going to open this game, look at the menu and the settings for creating a new game, and they are going to ask, "Where is everything? Where are the two AI’s with all the different customization options? Where are all the wheels to turn?" I have no idea why the map options removes previous options from the GUI (buttons are literally disappearing when I press other buttons, that’s not good. Ever.). The alignment of the buttons doesn’t make any sense to me or any kind of organization. I can’t see the whole map (there is no point to zooming in on the map by default when you are creating a game). I also think the screen doesn’t need to be so bright. This screen needs sunglasses. Space is black. But on this screen, space is a bright blue.
Continuing critiquing this screen, some of your drop-down menus are empty. You have arranged these button boxes in such a way that they just cover the map. The planet names are hidden. You should not be hiding the planet names. You need to sell character and your classic players have fond memories of certain planets where such and such a battle was had.
Anyway, you need to start over on this screen. A returning player will immediately think “where did the game go? Where is everything?” I don’t expect the epic Fallen Spire campaign, Showdown or anything like that. But, I do think you need all the little changes like the ship options, AI plots, AI options, etc. You said that all the code got moved over, so maybe you already have this, and you just don’t have a button for it. Don’t know, but even if you don’t have the same plots or the same options, you need to put customizations here. Things look sparse and missing. If you intend on just throwing all that stuff out for now, then let’s just change the screen to be something else completely that’s more in line with 4X titles. Change the screen to resemble a battle map with a slick menu.
Now on to the next screen, the galaxy map screen. The old classic galaxy map needed an overhaul. But, I can’t even find the new galaxy map! When I click on map (I think it says map, it’s on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen but is covered up by the development build information), and then I click on galaxy, I don’t get a map. And I can't figure out where the controls list is or how to modify it. Frustrated here.
Only two more screens to go. The planet view is next. The player will spend most of their time on this screen, so it must be spot on. It’s got a lot of problems but none bigger than the vertically climbing menu at the bottom of the screen. This must be thrown out. It’s not salvageable. Classic has a much better planet screen. Revisiting an earlier criticism, having GUI elements that disappear is frustrating. Can’t find what is where when the menu keeps shuffling. Unless you have some better ideas, I suggest going back to what you had with some matching art to your current style.
The tooltips for hovering your mouse over things, I don’t know what they mean. However, these pop-ups are so big that you may as well use actual words. There’s one graphic that looks like an artist’s palette or a yin-yang symbol cut in half. Is that armor? I’m guessing, I don’t know, and even if I did, it doesn’t mean anything to me because I don’t know what that armor is going to do for me. In classic, we all talked about strength/vulnerability confusions and trying to do away with that. Great. But the math should be clear. I would like to see radar graphs or something more thematic. Some of these screens look way too…happy. Remember, we are generals, civilization is at stake, we are fighting machines.
In the old planet view, we had a sidebar that was very minimalist while still being understandable. What we have now is too big, isn’t adding clarity or additional tactical information, and is generally in the way.
I almost want to say, it would be better if you had started using the design that you had for the buttons and menus and try to iterate over that. Some of the issues from classic seemed to stem from not having the GUI elements that you needed to bake the cake. But now we have what appears to be these square blocky blue menu buttons that you are building up or dropping down, disappearing or appearing. It doesn’t look very good. It looks square.
Now, I did include a planet view proposal GUI. I think you should make this a moddable skin. You can use the GUI elements that you already have, just let people paint over them. Also, I’m not saying my design is the best, you realize I did this in Microsoft paint so clearly is not supposed to be Van Gogh, but you get the idea. The information is always where you expect it to be. It doesn’t change locations. The buttons don’t change locations. The player always knows where to look and where to find things. That’s key.
I could go on, but I have been testing and writing for a couple hours, and I think it’s time to finish this report.
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