Game interface design development

The design of game interfaces is made up of many details, including life bars, coin counters, level cards, and even visual effects.

It helps a person to completely immerse himself in the virtual universe and creates the feeling that everything around is real.

Creating an interface is a complex process, which is often worked on by a whole team of specialists:

• Game Artist 2D. This is a user interface artist for 2D projects. His responsibilities include the implementation and optimization of user-friendly graphics, icons and buttons, health bars, mana and other elements that the user interacts with during the game. In addition, Artist 2D focuses on creating graphics, optimizing animations, designing typography to match the theme of the game, and improving the overall usability of the game. He interacts directly with game designers to determine how gamers will use the interface throughout the gameplay.

• Game Artist 3D. His duties are largely the same as Game Artist 2D, however, he works with 3D graphics. Its main task is to transform the concept into a 3D mesh, with the correct geometric proportions, symmetry and textures.
• Motion designer. Engaged in the creation of animated graphics and actually “revives” static interface elements. For example, the result of the work of a motion designer can be a decreasing scale of lives, an animated interface for tasks or character upgrades, and much more.

The stages of interface production are rather arbitrary – they often intersect and overlap each other, because in the process of creating a new game there are always a lot of ideas on how it can be improved. Nevertheless, in order to explain how this process takes place, we have tried to highlight the most significant stages.

Step 1. Working with references

There are millions of game projects in the world, therefore, often, a Game Artist can find examples of implementing the desired interface in different variations. Studying them helps to find successful developments that can be used in the current project, and not the most successful – those that are better to avoid.

Step 2: Create a Custom Script

A user scenario helps to understand exactly how a person will interact with the environment, what he needs to show and what opportunities to present in order to effectively perform actions. To create such a scenario, the expected behavior of the player and the situations in which he may find himself are briefly described.

Step 3. Coordination with the team

Before proceeding with the implementation, it is necessary to coordinate with the rest of the team members – game designers and programmers. This will help to make sure that all the planned developments can be created from a technical point of view, and that they will correspond to the overall concept of the project.

Step 4. Create mockups

First of all, prototypes of the future interface and its elements are created, with all their states. By making several sketches, you can determine which one will be the most viable. Changing mockups does not take much time, so any adjustments made at this stage do not have a big impact on the speed of the project.

Step 5. Designing the interface

Game Artist draws all the necessary elements and forms a coherent interface in accordance with the style and setting of the game. For example, if the project is related to the Middle Ages, it will be relevant to use the textures of rough metal, wood and stone. This will help create an authentic interface that enhances the overall atmosphere.

Game designers can use many different services and tools to create interfaces. Here are five of the most common programs with powerful functionality:

• Sketch. A tool with a huge set of plug-ins that opens up the possibility of implementation for most design tasks. However, for all its advantages, Sketch only works on Mac and does not support multiplayer, so its use is not always relevant.
• Figma. Relatively new software, presented in browser and desktop versions. The system saves all changes in layouts to the cloud in real time, and also supports the collaboration of several specialists.

• Adobe XD. Powerful and fast layout prototyping tool. However, it is inferior to competitors in terms of animations.
• InVision Studio. A popular service for designing interactive systems with the ability to add advanced animation. The software allows you to test prototypes on mobile devices and has an informative timeline. There are versions for Windows and MacOS.
• Framer X. The service allows you to develop UI components for React and debug UX / UI without even leaving the software. To work with Framer X, a specialist needs coding experience, but its functionality is far ahead of similar tools.

Game interfaces are created to help gamers interact with the virtual world of your game. In many ways, they have a decisive impact on the user experience, so their development should be given sufficient attention. 

AVADA MEDIA specialists have extensive experience in the game development industry and will help you implement the game from scratch, or its individual interfaces.