Diary 3: Simplifying the UI
One really important rule with user interfaces is “Less is more”. It’s important to show only the elements that a relative so that the user isn’t cluttered with unnecessary information. Right now Endurance’s UI is very cluttered. Especially at low resolutions.
Fixing the Problem
Today I’ve been working on solving this by hiding things that aren’t needed.
The first step was to allow the player to hide the character page. This can now be closed via a button, or opened / closed by double clicking a hero’s portrait.
The second step was to tackle the message log. These messages are important as they notify the player about key information. However it’s not needed all the time. The fix was to automatically hide the window when no messages have been recorded for a while. The user can un-hide it by moving their mouse over it’s location.
Here’s what it looks like now.
Retro Mode
After making some other UI changes I thought I’d implement a retro mode for fun. This was surprisingly easy to do. When enabled an effect is put over the game reducing the color palate of the dungeon, and adding a sepia like tone to the UI.
Today’s Changes [0.11.7]
- Added the ability to put outer shows on controls. (you can see them on notifications)
- Added support for controls to composite before drawing transparently.
- Changed the characters XP bar to a health and spells bar.
- Added icons to show when characters can level, or are pinned.
- Allowed the message box to hide if it hasn’t been used for a while.
- Allowed character page to be closed and opened.
- Added an in game menu to allow player to exit the game while in the dungeon.
- Changed the frame used around monster’s treasure boxes.
- Added a custom mouse cursor.
- Added retro mode
- Fixed some bugs
- Various optimisations
Endurance can be found on a sites, mine, IndieDB, and itch.io.
Most of these I’ll just be updating for major releases, however the most up-to-date version can always be previewed from my website here
