Blogs Developer Blog: Getting the Graphics Right

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/07/28/developer-blog-getting-the-graphics-right/

 

Actually, I've got a question. I'm interested how you designed the UI specifically. The conceptual UI from the later art above looks quite functional, so it would be interesting to know how and why you moved away from it?

 

It's one of those things that looks great but when you try it it's *absolutely* terrible. We had the current list-based orders menu, and converted it over to this to play with. It just felt really messy and horrible; also we'd already had good feedback from testers on how easy the current menu was to use, so we thought we'd stick with it.

In the current beta, it's one of the worst-looking in-game elements, so it still needs a lot of visual tweaking, but functionally, it's just better.

 

Hi Paul,

Another great blog. I'm really enjoying seeing some of the pieces behind the puzzle. I've one quick question but it's not actually related to Frozen Synapse per say, so feel free not to answer if you'd rather not.

What is your educational background? i.e. What (if any) degree(s) do you have?

 

I'd be interested to know how you make the choice between flashiness and function when it comes to the UI (and graphics) - obviously you need it to be functional, but at the same time, especially as an indie game, I would imagine a degree of flashiness is required to attract interest from players?

 

Do you have a dev log for the game, id like to subscribe.