A Great Resource for Game UI Design
Especially relevant for indie/solo designers with little available time
Games have a lot of unique UI/UX elements, from the countless menus to the stats in a head-up display. All of these are designed by UI/UX artists and every game has a unique feel to them. These days, many gameplay systems depend on having an excellent UI with all the critical information easily accessible to the player.
I find that game reviews don’t tend to emphasize a game’s UI/UX — well, unless these elements are considered bad (which is also true for other areas like sound design). The one exception here is when a game adds many accessibility and/or customization options.
When it comes to creating a great user interface, designers will typically start with low-fidelity wireframes which they heavily test in order to get the feel just right. Ideas for great design can come from anywhere, too, but it’s quite often the case that designers will look at other games from within the same genre as a starting point. We also definitely see examples where one game just completely borrows the design from another. Of course, getting ideas from other titles can be time-consuming; it can take hours or days of playing another game in order to glean enough valuable information to inform design decisions. It may also involve gathering a great deal of data (like watching videos and taking screenshots). It’s not just that user interfaces should be usable, either; art design is important. They need to be contextually-appropriate to the game and the game world. Some of the best and most natural interfaces also have a strong diegetic quality, which is to say that they look and behave as though they are a natural part of the in-game world.
I’m a freelance game developer by day and an indie creator by night. Because my schedule is so busy, I can only spend so much time checking out other games to analyze their UI/UX. Also, I’ve admittedly viewed UI/UX as an afterthought in the past. But my mindset changed once I found interfaceingame.com; it turns out to have been just the resource I needed, and you may find it useful if you’re in a similar situation.
This website solely exists to collect screenshots and videos of video games various screens and elements. These can all be sorted by genre, themes. and platforms. Next to that you can also sort by specific screens/menus such as the inventory screen, the lobby, credits, scoreboard, settings, and much more. This website has been my daily go-to for inspiration on certain UI elements for the last little while, even when I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.
Now with all that said there are a couple of things that are missing in my opinion:
- I would love to see a list of UI/UX specific accessibility screenshots as well, where appropriate.
- Next to that it would be awesome for other people to upload screenshots of certain titles as well, even if that would need to go to a review process. You can currently contribute by sending an email to interfaceingame@gmail.com.
- There are very few mobile games listed on the website. Also, it is not totally clear on some of the cross-platform games on what platform the screenshots were taken. The layout could change quite a bit depending on what platform you are playing on.
All-in-all I think this website is an awesome tool in any UI/UX designers’ toolset even if it is only for inspiration, or professional curiosity. I hope that this article has helped you if you’re in need of a resource like this.
