. . .you wouldn't need a "SAVE&QUIT" button, just a "QUIT" button.
Thanks Nightfrost, yeah I totally agree with not really needing 'Save & Quit' - just a 'Quit' button would be fine. Having different settings separated into different rooms is an interesting idea. There would be more scope to add different features and it would be less chockablock.
The reason I was trying to get all features on one single screen was to try and make it a kind of 'load 'n' click Start'' single interface, with the least amount of clicking around - ie less distractions when the motivation to workout is there.
Separating the features out into separate rooms is a really interesting idea that I will give a lot of thought to, especially due to the fact that I will add more features in time - so I may not have any choice but to separate the interface into different stages. Great idea.
I would also add that it would look better if you didn't use elements such as the check mark or lock to indicate selected or locked-out option. With your button style, it seem more natural to me to use color changes to indicate button state (black or bright blue for neutral, dark blue for selected, grey for locked).
That's an interesting idea, thanks Jezla.
I'd agree that the check mark seems out of place with the rest of your GUI. I would use some sort of border around the selected button, although the suggestion of color change for selected elements, either for the entire button or just the text within, could work too. I personally don't have any problem with the locks, except perhaps that the color of the locks is a little too similar to the color of the text. A darker blue or gray would be better.
Thank you for your feedback HeWhoShallNotBeNamed, yourself and Jezla have a good point about the check marks and also the lock / colour of the locks. I will think on this and could maybe do a 'makeover' of the GUI in an update. I will channel my efforts into getting more exercises into the game first as a priority (I have around 136 exercises, including left and right variations, but I would like to bump that number up to 300+. Then polish this interface with your suggestions guiding me.
I feel like there's no guidance,
normally certain parts are made bolder or more striking so that your eyes
get drawn to those first, then the sub parts that belong to those are below
and are contained inside those sections
The Level Selection, Time Selection and Location Selection should be the biggest texts,
and you should add another title for the Strength Exercises, Abs/Core Excercises..
called "Exercises", and remove this from each one, so they're Strength, Abs\Core, Flexibility & Balance and Tips
And I'd get rid of the "Selection" word, just use Level, Time, Exercises, Location
Then once those parts (The most important) are layed out, put the start save quit buttons to the right
of the screen out of the way, so once the player has finished selecting the options
they'll look there cus they're less bold and important looking, and above the buttons
you can display the Total Exercise Time etc. as these are just statistics that
the player might want to look at before playing again
All this is just advice, it might not all be the best thing to do,
it's just what I would think of doing if was in your position
This helps a lot Joe - great ideas. Guidance and clarity are arguably the most important things to consider for a GUI. Even if it looks nice visually, if players get frustrated and confused and feel lost - then the GUI is ineffective.
Wow, it's really amazing what things other people can see if you open your mind to suggestions. That is something I can work on to improve clarity.
It's a good start, but kind of noisy. I would try to standarise the colours and fonts used rather than the mix you have now.
And maybe draw boxes around the various groups of buttons that belong together to make it easier to understand the groupings.
I agree with both of those observations Indianabones. Standardising the colours and fonts plus putting boxes around groupings of related buttons would definitely help to make it less noisy. This will help with clarity in particular. Really helpful ideas there, thank you.
One of my first thoughts was that maybe too much information was being packed into one screen.
If you separated the info and maybe had some text that described in detail what stuff did, that might be better.
Maybe the GUI will be obvious to the player without descriptive text but I don't have any other suggestions
Thanks Rob, that is a good observation, being able to provide information on what each button/area does is another reason to seriously consider separating out the GUI into different screens/rooms.
I agree that there's too much info for one screen, I would split it up into different stages if possible (first difficulty selection, then exercise + duration selection, then location) and have "back" buttons that lets players go back if they think they selected the wrong thing at some point. If you handle the entire menu as separate object instances at the moment, you could achieve this pretty easily - make the room several screens tall / wide, and spread the objects out so they don't all fit in the view at once, and then scroll the view when they pass to the next stage of the menu. (Scroll in increments of an entire viewport for simplicity's sake).
This would also free up some screen space for things like future DLCs / new game modes, explanatory text for the exercise types, previews of the location, and cool decorative graphics to get the player's blood pumping.
Thanks Yal, some really great ideas there. The main feedback message in general from your comment and other comments is that this screen really needs to be 'uncluttered' and separated out into maybe 2 screens/rooms, or like you said, make it scrollable even.
The fact that this would allow room for different game modes is a great observation, as I have plans to incorporate a different game mode after I've polished the whole game (along with the GUI).
Decorative graphics to boost motivation is an idea I've never even considered . . . yeah that would be fun to incorporate too. I have put motivational quotes that display randomly every time the game starts, but motivating players by using graphics is a great option.
This community is so helpful when it comes to straight up honest feedback, as friends and family are sometimes reluctant to tell you about things that could be improved. I have found one thing that works nicely though - I show the game to friends, and of course they give me encouragement which is nice, but then I say 'There's something wrong with it though that I need to fix. Can you spot what it is?' Then, whatever detail they point out you can then reply 'Exactly!' This way friends don't feel bad for criticising and you can find out what really needs to be improved upon with that new found constructive criticism.
Wow! A lot of food for thought there.