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This week’s blog is a sequel to Mus’s one last week. His blog set up dreams and ideals, and this one exists to show you everything that’s wrong with dreams and ideals, but also why that’s not a bad thing.
First off, an introduction: My name is Gaz and I’m the programmer here at Space Budgie, so all the mechanics of Glitchspace are analogous to what I do day-to-day, only way more exciting and aesthetically pleasing. This means it’s my job to provide the tools for the rest of the team to take their ideas and creations and put them in the game so that they one day might reach the eyes of the players!
So I thought it might be exciting if I talked about how that process can happen, and the sort of issues you can face when taking something from the idea and design stage into the implementation and eventually testing stages. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading at least the previous post so that you’re up to speed with the snazzy new designs.
The new expanding Tool menu, as described in Mus’s blog, worked great once I got it implemented in game. It was snappy to open, quick to navigate and really helped to keep the programming interface focussed. The only trouble was that if you opened the menu near the edges of the window, many of the buttons would appear off screen!
So, what to do? Mus and I (and eventually Ronan) sat down together (I mean, we were already sitting) and tried to work out a solution to this problem.
Solution 1:
If the player opens the menu near the edge of the window, and some of the buttons would be put off screen, then move the entire menu to fit correctly.
The trouble with this is that it means that the location of the buttons is never consistent, and it’s much harder to teach a player if you keep moving about the tools under seemingly arbitrary conditions. Also, when you expand a category does it move again? Does it move back when you close it? Confusing.
Solution 2:
If the player opens the menu near the edge of the window, move any buttons that would be off screen back onto the screen and arrange them neatly.
Again, the trouble here is that the button placement is inconsistent, possibly even more so than Solution 1. Not good.
Solution 3:
Only let the player open the menu near the center of the screen.
One of the difficult things about designing systems for a game is striking a balance between providing the freedom for players to explore the systems in their own way, but also restricting it just enough so that they doesn’t feel lost and confused. This solution really goes against player freedom and it can be confusing when the menu doesn't open where you expect it to.
This solution came from us trying to account for the worst case scenario of fitting every tool on screen neatly. Really though, most of the time the Tool Menu will contain only the tools needed to solve the puzzle at hand (along with a few red herrings and a couple of bits for experimentation). So this solution would create a very sparse programming interface with very limited player control.
Solution 4:
Let the player do what they want.
It’s not the Wild West, but if you give the player consistent rules, make everything clearly signposted and ensure that the interactions are quick and responsive, then you can trust that the player is able to learn for themselves.
The Tool Menu is quick to open and close, and it’s this strength that we’re building on. If the player opens the menu in a place that doesn’t work for them, they can easily open it in a better place without being punished for it (Did you play the PS port of Final Fantasy 6? 4 seconds to open a menu adds up when you’re constantly doing it).
So, in summary, design can be hard. Designing for every possible scenario is time consuming and you’ll probably end up missing something anyway, so get something that feels right in your gut and build on that. The most important thing is to get something tangible that you can play with, because all those little flaws bubble to the surface much faster when you actually get it out of your head and into your hands! Tiny flaws are a good thing though, they're how you learn and improve!
Right, I’ve inspired myself.
I'm out,
Gaz