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Design Different Health and Stamina Bars

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Tayoyo

Guest
There are many different ways to express the player's health and stamina. What I currently have is a simple health and staminabar at the left top corner of the screen. It's boring, but it works. I recently messed up the GUI layers for my game, and instead of fixing them I was thinking of just ditching them altogether and making a new system to show health. Here's a few I have, and I'd love to see your ideas on what could be improved or things that I didn't think of yet

-Have it only shown through sound effects (heart beat, heavy breather) and screen effects (vignette, blood on screen) and animation (limping, dripping blood).
Pros: Very immersive,
Cons: Players can't get an accurate measure of their health/stamina. Might not work in my action game as there will be a lot of fighting noises and it may be hard for players to figure out how much life they have left in the middle of a fight.

-Have a small green circle (health) with a thin yellow circle (stamina) float above the player's head whenever they do an action or take damage. Have it fade away when not in use. It'd be similar to what BOTW has. It'd would trail behind the player kinda like a fairy for a second probably, just to make it a bit more interesting.
Pros: Player doesn't have to take their focus away from the character, feels a bit more immersive than a standard health bar, accurate and simplistic way to show health
Cons: Could be hard to see, or could clutter up the screen around the character when things start getting really action packed

-Have a standard health and stamina bar in the top left corner. Fade away when not being used. Could take many different forms (hearts, diablo health balls, health bars)
Pros: Player can easily see how much health they have left, doesn't get in the way of combat
Cons: Have to look away from character, isn't very immersive


So far I'm really leaning towards the circle bar above the characer, as it seems like a good balance between the two. If you have any other ideas or things that I missed be sure to tell me. It'll be very helpful. Thanks!
 
One of my favourite methods is saturation. Either reducing the saturation of the player themselves or the whole screen. One of the first times i remember coming across this was a SNES game Metal Warriors. You piloted a mech and when it started to look monochrome, you knew it was time to maybe bail and find a new mech.
I think trying to keep as much off the GUI as possible is almost always the best option, it always feels more immersive to me.

Stamina always feels a little trickier to me, but it depends on how your stamina is used. Sometimes I can substitute it with something like a glowing weapon or some particle effects, as long as it's integrated into the game world somehow and makes sense.
 
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Tayoyo

Guest
One of my favourite methods is saturation. Either reducing the saturation of the player themselves or the whole screen. One of the first times i remember coming across this was a SNES game Metal Warriors. You piloted a mech and when it started to look monochrome, you knew it was time to maybe bail and find a new mech.
I think trying to keep as much off the GUI as possible is almost always the best option, it always feels more immersive to me.

Stamina always feels a little trickier to me, but it depends on how your stamina is used. Sometimes I can substitute it with something like a glowing weapon or some particle effects, as long as it's integrated into the game world somehow and makes sense.
Stamina is used very similar to dark souls (eg. dashing, attacking). I agree with having a very minimal HUD. It looks a lot better. I'll have to see what works as I test stuff out probably
 

sylvain_l

Member
kinda like a fairy for a second probably,
I like the idea of a little fairy anims spellcasting an healing spell to try to heal the player when taking damage to show the amount of health lost; could be an interesting way of showing damages taken :D
could fit the theme if your game is medfan/fantasy.
have a number of fairies depending of amount of health lost or upgrade the fairy/ or how fast she spellcast.
 

Morendral

Member
Honestly i like the idea of both, but i sightly lean toward healthbars if you are only going with one and not a combo. I don't like having player info floating above them though, i think it can get in the way of trying to look at things. It might be ok for your game though
 
T

Tayoyo

Guest
Honestly i like the idea of both, but i sightly lean toward healthbars if you are only going with one and not a combo. I don't like having player info floating above them though, i think it can get in the way of trying to look at things. It might be ok for your game though
I'll make it fade away when they're not using it, but I still agree that it could get in the way during combat for sure
 
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