A useful user interface, part 1: Play controls

As a professional "web guy," I have more than a passing interest in user interfaces. The most brilliant concept or the most beautiful design means nothing if people can't accomplish their desired tasks on the web. The same is true, of course, for any kind of application, serious or silly.

For SPUDZOOKA to appeal a wide audience, its play controls and graphical interface must be simple, intuitive, and easy to master. Frustration is the opposite of fun. I don't know yet if I've succeeded in delivering the fun, but here's a look (in two parts) at the basic process I used to design the game's various interface elements.

Play controls
SPUDZOOKA is primarily a target-shooting game, but it borrows a lot of its play controls from first-person shooters. The challenge is to keep the controls as streamlined as possible. Here's what the player needs to be able to do, and the reasoning behind the control scheme I chose for each task:

• Aim and fire the cannon -- The goal of each level is to destroy as many targets as possible within a set time limit, so aiming and firing is kind of important. Thankfully, as anyone who ever played a first-person shooter will know, the mouse provides a perfect interface for this: move the mouse to aim; click to shoot. Easy enough.
• Switch weapons -- Lots of target-shooting games stop there, but SPUDZOOKA lets you carry more than one potato cannon at a time, so there has to be a way to switch between them. Another first-person shooter convention fits well here: using the number keys to switch weapons.
• Switch ammo -- Yes, more switching. Clearly everyone knows that different spud cannons shoot different kinds of ammunition, so I had to work that into the game. The number keys are out for this one (even the higher numbers), since they are being used to switch weapons. I could map several letter keys to various ammo types, but that still seemed redundant and possibly confusing. Instead I decided to use a single button (tab) to cycle through all the available ammo types for the active cannon. The disadvantage here is that it could take a bit longer to select the desired ammo. However, because each cannon will only be able to shoot a few types of ammo, a cycling control seemed to work well enough (let me know if you disagree).

That's it. Seasoned FPS gamers (who made it this far) may have noticed that one important control is missing: the ability to walk around. Seems like a big omission, I know, but I have decided for the time being that the player will be stationary. I'm sure it seems limiting, but there are a couple of reasons for it.

1. The levels are small and potato cannons shoot a long way. If you can run around and shoot things, it might be too easy. Enabling really slow movement would probably irritate people. Better not to risk it.
2. I don't want to complicate things. A lot of the skill in FPS games comes from the player's ability to move and aim at the same time. I know this because I am quite inept at jumping while shooting in Halo, which seems to be necessary for survival in multiplayer mode. While plenty of people certainly possess these skills (they have all killed me in Halo), I don't want those skills to be a requirement for my game. I want to focus the player's attention on choosing the right cannon and ammunition for clearing obstacles and hitting targets, not on maneuvering quickly and dexterously through space.

Once you play through a few levels, you can tell me whether you're completely bored standing in place. In part 2, a look at the graphical user interface.

Good progress...and a long way to go

SPUDZOOKA is coming along pretty nicely now. I've got the backbone of the game working, which means that it's possible to play through several levels and edit your potato cannon in between. You can also change cannons and ammunition on the fly. Everything fits together, and I don't get any code errors when I play through it. All things considered, that's pretty good.

The bulk of the work now is in two places:

• The graphical interface. I need to make it prettier and, I hope, completely intuitive. The goal is for people to be able to play with minimal instructions. I figure a casual game like this can't survive more than a few seconds of, "What am I supposed to do?"
• Level design. I've got a couple test levels built, just to get the flow of the game set up, but they will need to be completely redone. Thankfully I set things up so building new levels shouldn't be too hard.
  
• Ok, three places. I also need to polish up the sound effects and come up with some music. Naturally I plan to compose and record it myself (I've gotten this far, why bring in anyone else now?) That could take a while, but it'll be fun.
• Well...maybe four (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition). The whole point of building this thing is for people to play. So I have to put the game out there. At the moment the plan is to publish it on a web site, which I have to build. I don't envision anything too complicated, but it'll take a little time.

My goal is to have the game itself finished by the end of March. I doubt I can get the web site done by then as well, but who knows. I'm hoping to have something for you all to play test in another week.

A virtual haircut

Check this out, folks. One of my friends pointed me to a really cool YouTube video containing some amazing sound design.

WAIT: Before you press play, put on some headphones. It won't be as cool otherwise.



Yeah, ears are funny looking, but they're pretty cool, right?

EA and TakeTwo

A quick news post today to let everyone know (I was a little slow to find out) that EA has made a bid to purchase TakeTwo, owners of Rockstar Games and makers of the Grand Theft Auto series. TakeTwo has refused the bid, but the folks at EA apparently aren't backing down; they have published this open letter to TakeTwo and the rest of the gaming public. Thanks to Screen Play (an Australian game news blog that I read) for covering the story.

As a huge fan of the GTA series, I don't quite know what to make of this. Certainly the series will continue regardless of what happens with these two companies, but I hope GTA IV won't be delayed too much because of it.

The similarities between EA's offer and Microsoft's rebuffed offer to buy Yahoo are pretty obvious here. All we need is EA's chief rival to come out publicly condemning the acquisition as hazardous to gaming public's right to virtual entertainment. Get on it, Vivendi.

I dream of GDC

One of these years I'll actually go to GDC. It would be nice of course not to foot the bill myself, but that may be my only option. There seems to be a lot going on at this year's show, including a keynote address by the guy I wrote my master's thesis about, Ray Kurzweil.

But if I can't go, at least I can read all the news that comes out of the show. This report in particular, about a game designer named Blow (not sure where he came up with that) and his ten new challenges for game design. I love reading articles about game design and the theory behind it. They get the academic side of my brain going (my inner academigeek?) and help me understand different ways of looking at games.

Faithful readers may remember that I tend to take a very analytical approach to game design, and Mr. Blow apparently bristles at that approach, calling it "sterile." Thankfully, he provides some useful (if somewhat obvious) alternative paradigms for people thinking about game design.

Aside from thought-provoking and mind-bending keynote speeches, probably the biggest news to come out of GDC this year is Microsoft's announcement that they are launching, later this year, Xbox LIVE community games, essentially a YouTube of gaming where anyone can create games (using Microsoft's XNA development tools) and publish them for people to play. Bruce Everiss gives a dramatic account of the news in which he heralds "a flowering of innovation and creativity beyond anything the game industry has ever seen before. Probably beyond what any creative industry has seen before." Whoa, there.

I doubt Microsoft's announcement will have much impact on me in the short term, since I use a Mac-based game development platform. However, this does open the door for far more indie games, and I will be shocked if Sony and Nintendo don't release a similar system for their consoles. It will certainly give me a lot more insight into my competition. Unity is already equipped for Wii development, so if that happens (and if Wii development kits become more easily available), I'll be ready.