Blogs Thoughts on HUD Design

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/07/31/thoughts-on-huds/

 

TCE didn't have a usable ammo gauge - you were supposed to count your shots.

In addition, a fast reload lost the remaining rounds in the magazine you pulled. A tactical reload saved them, but was much slower. Tactical reloads could also be disabled server side.

Needs fixing.

 

My personal favourite has to be trespasser. No HUD, no menus, no inventory. You carry two guns and she tells you how many shots you have left, sometimes inaccurately; "looks like seven" doesn't always mean exactly seven bullets left in your gun.

Health was done with the rather cheekily located "heart tattoo", which filled with red when you got injured.

In combination with actually having to pick stuff up with the crazy arm that had a mind of its own and the dodgy physics, the game was hugely involving (if a little frustrating) with no distractions to remind you that you're actually playing a game. Well... ten years ago. Today the graphics are a bit jarring.

 

I like hardcore mode in modern warfare 2 because it eliminates most all of the hud. That being said for the average player, not knowing how much ammo you have, who your teammates are etc can be really dangerous.

 

Skimmed the article but had to comment on this

Are you serious? Really serious? I'll agree it's a tad scary for the first 2 levels or so but then the only part that scared me afterward was the dead guy (or so you think) in the locker everything else was terrible. It was a complete bore fest, everything was really slow, the story was just bleh, the combat was crap, the AI was terrible, it was supposed to be good at the time but the amount of times I'd get enemies just walk from one side of the screen to the other just to get to a different wall to stay behind was rediculous. The whole games was a completely overhyped and unscary "scary" game I've ever played. Like Fear, was supposed to be this really scary game when in fact once you noticed that you moved from section to section each resulting in either a battle or something to do with alma it just stops being scary after the first hour or so. To me monolith horror games just use completely predictable scare tactics which really fail to scare me. If I wanted to be scared I'd turn to Silent Hill, but never something monolith related.

EDIT: Oh did I forget buggy as well? A quick google finds many people who on the last boss which you fight 3 times find that sometimes after beating him the first time you are unable to pick up any weapons so you are forced to kick him to death, that is a serious bug which should've been fixed. All of that combined just makes me more angry with the game when I played it than actually scared. How can you get into such a terrible game enough to be scared by it?

 

One of the benefits of the Source engine games, particularly Day of Defeat Source, was the ability to use customised HUDs, with the ability to resize, move or remove information on the HUD to suit a player's style/preference.

Wish more games allowed this type of freedom.

 

I guess its assumed that the likes of Agent 47 and Commander Shepherd can keep a mental count without any effort after their many years of training, so the information is just given to you.

Also, an article on HUDs without mention of the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System? Wants the new fallout now.

 

An ammo counter isn't much of an issue, with weeks of training a professional soldier would know exactly how many magazines they're carrying and how much is in their gun. A health counter is okay too because people generally know if they're about to die. So a health bar and ammo counter just give the gamer information that their character would know instinctively.
But features like a map on a HUD which shows exactly where your allies and enemies are nearly always kill the realism, especially when in multiplayer games you have to constantly check them to avoid giving your enemies an advantage. Maps like these aren't usually explained and the game would be just as playable and much more immersive without them.

 

To be honest, when a HUD is done well I don't even notice it. Sure I can check my health or ammo count, but it is otherwise not detracting from my gaming experience. And even poorly done HUDS I tend to just filter out for the most part, as I suppose I have become almost desensitized to them over the years. A HUD has to be truly awful, to the point of actually getting in the way of game-play, to really be an issue.

I will say that more developers need to give us the option to move and resize the HUD to suit our individual preferences. It's not as though it is hard to do for most games.

 

I always have some kind of hud regardless. I Use X-Fire which has a in-game overlay system and you can keep a clock (so you know when it is time for bed, gaming all night is not a good idea) and a framerate counter.
Would be cool if the game could just relegate the ammo and health info to XFire so Xfire was responsible for drawing it on the screen. that way you have full customizability of it.

Yes I know Steam has its own in-game system but it doesn't let you keep stuff on screen all the time while playing. Also it has no broadcasting feature or video recording. When Steam gets all that I will ditch XFire.

 

I like immersion and HUDs can really detract from a game for me. It all depends on the game of course. As an example, I love playing the Dark Mod on high difficulty with no light gem, and when Thief 3 came out I customised it so that the HUD became nonintrusive and peripheral. I also remember playing the King Kong game (based on Peter Jackson's film) which practically had no HUD and was stronger for it, the game itself was just above average but had great atmosphere. I absolutely dislike achievement popups, and reminders that someone has logged on or whatever. However I would struggle to play an RPG without a lot of information available. It all depends on what makes the particular game experience.

 

I LOVE the HUD on Split Second Velocity, for the kind of racing game it is it's just perfect, I haven't seen a HUD being that incorporated in a game since Metroid Prime

 

All shooter games should have the option of a HUD and a option to remove it for the more hardcore players, nothing is worst then not knowing how many rounds you have left before running into an enemy.

 

Interestingly I don't mind HUDs, but whenever a clunky HUD comes to mind it's the original STALKER's, yes it told you everything, but it killed so much of the realism.

That is until the HUD mods came out, then it was awesome.

 

iLOL when I hear Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2)'s hardcore modes. Really? just tap the reload key after you're in a safe spot, it's not like it tosses the magazine / takes 5+ seconds to reload... infact some guns don't even take a second.
As far as health - take it as any game without it has - by yelping, bleeding, limping, et cetera.
THE MOST annoying thing to me, has to be overlaying maps, especially with enemy locations. If you can't spot stuff out yourself why let the computer help you? It's unfair no matter which way you dice or slice it...

 

Yeah, STALKER mods are great for reducing that down to a bare minimum / nothing at all.

 

I liked the way that "The Getaway" handled it. In that, as you got injured your character got bloodstains on his clothing and started to limp. To "Heal", you found yourself somewhere quiet and out of the firefight, and rested for a moment. That works well in a 3PS, but not in a FPS (For obvious reasons).

 

I actually hate the COD style where everything turns into a jam glasses when you bleed. Rather a particularily fun HUD i used was BLACK's just an ammo counter and a small nonintrusive health bar.

Plus when you got low on health it was even more like a John Woo film on steroids.

 

I think the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay deserves a mention here!. For instance, when wielding a gun, your aiming reticle isn't a crosshair drawn in the middle of the screen as in other games, but it's the gun's own laser sight. There is no ammo gauge and your health only appears as a row of simple, white boxes as you're taking damage. You have a limited ability to regenerate your health if you crouch down to avoid further injury for a few moments, which is a good system that encourages a tactical approach to combat and really helps draw you into riddick's world and makes an aleady atmospheric game even more atmospheric....

only mirror's edge comes close...

 

There are two horror games that had a interesting hud. First was "Call of Cthulhu: DCotE". It simply didn't have any hud. To check on your char u had to hit some key and a notebook would pop up.

The second was Alone in the dark (the last one). Again no hud. To check your inventory, you need to look down and see your jacket pockets. One side at time. To me, the best inventory idea ever made.

AND, Condemned IS the MOST creepiest game ever! It was buggy, but playing it at night with headphones is REALLY creepy.

If you don't agree, please enlighten us with some more creepy game than that. Some close calls are FEAR and Dark Corners of the Earth.
But again, C:CO is the creepiest!