information overload for new players
Yeah, it’s a busy screen. Plus side, the most important things take up lots of space, so you immediately get the gist. Enemies are coming at you, use cards and spellbook to defend.
Minus side, there’s little icons everywhere. So here are some ideas to rearrange and simplify. (Maybe you’ve thought of these, but maybe you haven’t, so might as well post them.)
- As mentioned above, move icons closer to things they relate to.
- Try to move less-important details into tooltips.
- Split up the icons into categories: HP, statuses, and intents. Put each in a different spot around the enemy.
- Maybe the HP and shields can be merged into a single bar, using red for health and blue/grey for shield.
- Combine HP and shields into a single number, with a tooltip for the details. I figure that unless the player is running poison, they don’t really care about the difference.
- You can switch the icon to convey more information. The default icon is a heart, meaning the number is just HP, nothing else. Then when an enemy gets shields, switch to a “heart partially covered by a shield” icon to indicate the number shown is the sum of both defenses.
- Speaking from experience, having two side-by-side numbers tripped me up. I’d scan the battlefield, see no numbers above 3, and expect my 3-damage AoE attack to wipe them out. But then they actually have 1 hp + 3 shields, or 3+2, etc. (Disclaimer: this might just be me and my tendency to take shortcuts on easy problems.)
- Other games put intents above the enemy’s head, but in this pseudo-3d view it makes more sense to put them below, overlapping the enemy’s sprite a little. Make it look like they’re holding that sword out at you, or holding up a shield to block.
- Statuses can go above or alongside, it doesn’t really matter as long as they’re separate from intents. In fact, statuses like swole can be de-emphasized, since their effects are already included in the intent’s damage. Try making them smaller, allowing abilities like wail to stand out by comparison.
- Highlight statuses that react to the player’s current spell. Highlight wail if they’re using zap and have enough damage to kill, and highlight that other one (forget the name) if they’re about to draw cards.
- In addition to highlighting the icon, maybe put an exclamation point near the enemy’s head (or whatever passes for it), to show that they’re going to react. But exclude enemies who will die from the spell.