Steam Friends Review is up

Testers have suggested simplifying the layout of some of the screens before. From a "newb" perspective, it might take a while to figure out the tabs and drop-downs. For example, I can recall at lest 3 different occasions in the past couple of days where people were complaining that the "Turret Upgrade" skill is not available for them

 

frankly, i think the whole game needs to be idiot-proofed, which is to me sounds like a painful and tedious process, but if we want these newbies to stick around an inevitability.

I.e. there was a suggestion for more pop up tooltips, one of the original mod db reviews complained about buildings being poorly identified (granted that review was a POS, but still), and then there's this guys observations.

As for the buildings, I think future graphic updates could just slap a really simple sign somewhere obvious-- like the ammo request bullet right next to the armory door, or a little man next to the entrance of a rax, a tank by the VF, etc... idk what radar would be. Something esoteric and metaphysical... like an apple, signifying knowledge :D Perhaps a lightbulb, or a brain... or something.

also, chahk, check this hot shit out. (It was rejected by the devs, I guess thematically they were too cartooney or something, idk, krenzo didn't say.) But yeah, that's just one more thing that needs idiot-proofed.

 

I remember that thread well, as well as the original one that spawned it.

 

Menu/UI stuff is actually really hard, which is why there is often someone dedicated to it. You have to balance usability, aesthetics, complexity vs. required complexity. You have to think like a retard and think like someone who enjoys micro-management to work it out, so right now what we have is access to everything, logically layed out, but it could definitely be improved.

The other thing is it's hard to prototype. UI's are graphical but also interactive, so doing a mock up in photoshop doesn't cover anything other than aesthetics, and writing it up in word has no relevence to the graphical layout.

 

Well, a mockup is a start that will give you a general idea if a particular layout will work at all. After that, a working prototype will tell you how things turn out during testing. Isn't that why there are testers after all?