An Eye-Catching Experience

Understanding UI design in Newt!

UI in games involve many decisions and one of the main questions is to ask is if you want a very populated screen with UI or a simplistic look to your game with just a small amount of UI. When it comes to Newt! we decided on going the more simplistic route. This allows our players to see more of the games visuals while still having the help of the UI to guide the player. Adding certain details to the UI helps the player understand what they are navigating through or what they are about to click on. Which in return will help the player quickly navigate through menus and get back into the game when needed. The main thing to take away from UI is that it needs to be efficient while being informative.

When it comes to the start screen, we wanted everything to be playful and bright to bring a sense of joy to the player before they embark on the journey ahead. On top of that we wanted the start screen to be easy to navigate through so that the player could jump straight into the action if they wanted to. The style of the start screen gives subtle hints of what will be in store for the player through the jungle leaves and even Newt popping out the side.

Much of the UI that you will see in game will help lead the player to understand the game, the lore, or even give some slight hints to help them solve puzzles that may stump them at times. However, we did not want the UI to clutter the screen to the point that the player cannot enjoy the environment they are in. This allows the player to engage into the game more while the UI does its job, giving those subtle hints that are needed.

Color choices for the UI were chosen to keep them close to the same color palette as the in-game colors to make sure everything was uniform. However, to balance things so that the player could read the UI, we made sure colors did not blend into the background no matter what the player may be looking at. This allows the player to focus on the navigation of the user interface rather than what could distract them in the background.

In the end people can see why there is such an importance of how the user interface looks in games and how it affects the player’s gameplay. Overall, we tried to make sure our game was easy to navigate for all type of players from the novice to the experts. Hopefully you enjoyed this short read about the user interface in Newt! and enjoy the beautiful graphics of our game when it is fully done.

William Hollinger

Lead UI Designer