Visual Design of Games Exercises
Elements of “Cheese or Font”
Core: the name of the cheese/font, having a place to receive user’s input, play button to start the game
Support: instructions of how to play, timer, score
Extraneous: titles above the table, the ability to change the form of timer and scoreboard, color changes
Designing with core elements: I thought the core of the game was just the names we had to guess, the ability to guess them, and the ability to start the game.
Making one element huge: I tried making the start button larger since the original one seemed a lot smaller and could be possibly missed.
Adding Color: I made the start button green to make it more noticeable for players.
Changing Typeset: I changed the typeset differently for the start text as well as the name text.
Proximity: I tried letting the names we had to guess be grouped while having answers on another side. I thought it would make it more clear that one would consider questions and the other answers by having them separated. I also explored the idea of just focusing on one question at a time.
Pokemon
One of my favorite childhood games was Pokemon but whichever generation I was played the controls were intuitive with the help of the visual design. In the example above we see the general progression for a battle in Pokemon.
The first thing we notice is the size of the biggest selector “FIGHT” which is the most used button in comparison to the other actions. This is further emphasized by the fact by “BAG”, “RUN”, and “POKEMON” are much smaller in comparison. In the movie menu, we see that all the moves are equally sized indicating that they are equally important.
The next thing we notice about the graphical interface is the color it is presented in. Each button has a different color to represent a different action. The “FIGHT”, “BAG”, “RUN”, and “POKEMON” each has its own color to represent a different action. Furthermore, in the move menu, each move has a unique color dependant on the type of move giving information to the player as well. For example, a water type move will be shown in a blue outline.
In terms of typography, Pokemon keeps a consistent theme of the font using capital letters to be easier to read.
