Indie games are also often doing things for which there are no standardized mappings because they're creating a unique gameplay experience. It's really bizarre to ding smaller games for making those choices vs. big games with more traditional gameplay but really clumsy UI/UX. - ThreadSky

jesawyer.bsky.social • 238 days ago

Indie games are also often doing things for which there are no standardized mappings because they're creating a unique gameplay experience.

It's really bizarre to ding smaller games for making those choices vs. big games with more traditional gameplay but really clumsy UI/UX.

Reposted from Kyle Kukshtel

I don’t like how it also seems inversely important based on perceived value of the game. Huge games with bad ux always get a pass but indies and small games get piled on if it’s anything but perfect

Comments

razvra.bsky.social•238 days ago

could it be that the clumsy UI/UX is also the safest bet for giving a huge and diverse AAA player base an average-to-good experience? or is it more likely a result of other stuff being prioritized and then it's too hard to redo the main controls?

willydylly.bsky.social•238 days ago

First recent non indie that comes to mind is Echoes of Wisdom. A game whose original conceit was a dungeon maker that couldn’t quite blend its UX satisfyingly into the action game it wanted to be. I think some outlets were critical of this but a lot of reviewers looked past it bc they still had fun.

willydylly.bsky.social•238 days ago

Not that fun is the be-all-end-all metric for a review but I do think that’s the mindset more often than not.

bighomie39.bsky.social•238 days ago

I think the problem is that there's a crap ton of Echoes, you're using them more often than the very similar menus in TOTK, and there's not really a better way I can think of to design the Echoes menu

willydylly.bsky.social•238 days ago

Yeah there isn’t a solve I can think of either, my closes guesses being:

having a “favorites” category that you could “star” things into

And a radial menu for those favorites that wouldn’t pause the action (pausing optional).

If ux matters enough for you, it probably shouldn’t get a pass.

jdefiant.bsky.social•238 days ago

I feel like it's a mixture of designers possibly not having enough time to iterate and games packing in more information and details into their gameplay.

I haven't worked on a big game project fully, but so many projects I've done have to get rushed out the door and that seems to be the trend.

ragekit.bsky.social•238 days ago

One man's bad UX is another man's interesting interaction

jesawyer.bsky.social•238 days ago

I think when we get into the realm of “this input can either initiate conversation or shoot someone in the face” it stops being a matter of taste for 99.9% of players.

ragekit.bsky.social•237 days ago

Gamedesign is putting frictions at some points and removing them at other to highligh some interactions and make other fade to the background (imo, any can disagree). Eg " Do you have an infinite inventory or do you wear your inventory on yourself"

jesawyer.bsky.social•237 days ago

This requires intentionality in design and to be frank I'm not willing to charitably assume that for a lot of AAA games. In the absence of a statement of intent we're left with the experience and for many AAA games IMO there's nothing to infer from a clumsy input scheme other than thoughtlessness.

ragekit.bsky.social•237 days ago

But in and off itself, having the same input to shoot or talk is interesting in itself imo. That's not what RDR2 wants to talk about so it's annoying for this game (even if its say something about it nonetheless) , but we can imagine a game that use this friction to it's advantage.

jesawyer.bsky.social•237 days ago

I'd like it if AAA game designers could imagine how human beings actually play games, for a start.

ragekit.bsky.social•237 days ago

You know it's not wholly the fault of the designer, sometimes they don't have a lot of choice in the actual gamedesign in AAA :( But while there is "obvious" UX traps I think it's good to question why they are obvious or traps. Sometimes interesting things can hide there.

tegiminis.bsky.social•238 days ago

RDR2 may be clumsy, but other games, like MGS2, deploy the intentionality trap with purpose. And I do think the chaotic violence of cramming too many actions onto one character controller has a certain resonance with the message of the game, funny and awkward as it may be

tegiminis.bsky.social•238 days ago

This isn't to say you're wrong, just a specific feeling / thought I've mulled over before. You're both right imo

trialist.bsky.social•238 days ago

Victoria 3 is a huge release from Paradox and the UI literally crashes. You'd open a list, and the list doesn't load, and you have to open something else and come back to the list to try again.
Webdev API calls tier crashes in a single local offline application. And it has had dozens of patches now!

falconeerdev.bsky.social•238 days ago

Try to design anything that isnt like everything else and gamers will eat you up.

I've been doing minimalist experimental UI for years now, and for better and worst, I've never read a mention of it in the many reviews or previews.

Folks dont care about UI .. or dislike if its different.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply