I’ve always been a fan of games which choose to reduce visual imagery to it’s barest form. When I saw Playdead‘s LIMBO I knew it’d be a game I’d want to checkout. It’s been popping up everywhere. But I have to admit after checking out the video on it’s site, and seeing many screenshots, I am very excited for Playdead‘s LIMBO. Via this article from Kotaku the story is described as thus:

Limbo is the story of a young boy braving a bleak and mysterious world in order to determine the fate of his sister. The art is purely black and white, with the main character and platforming elements silhouetted against beautiful greyscale backdrops.

It’s coming to Xbox Live, and I am going to play it. There’s a few more screen shots after the jump if you haven’t left inglorio.us and gotten lost in the website for LIMBO.

I saw this group of tweets from @taleoftales stream on Twitter and I want to say I’m astounded at the absurdity of the installation process for Bioshock 2 on Steam. We speculate why people don’t play games on their PC as much anymore. This is why.

Rockstar‘s Red Dead Redemption looks great, as the video above shows. I like the trimmed down UI, and the quick shot of the “store” UI looked pretty slick as well. Interesting choice for that persistent mini map in that lower left. Looks like it with lifted right from Grand Theft Auto IV.

Avatar isn’t going to just be a new movie from Titanic director James Cameron; it’s also going to be a new video game developed by Ubisoft. It’s gotten a significant amount of press for a movie tie-in, even dominating a sizeable space at PAX for a booth featuring a replica of the cockpit of one of the flying machines starring in the movie… er… game.

As this video posted on Kotaku shows the graphics are impressive, however I’m not awed by Ubisofts choices for HUD layout. Persistent elements are thrown in every corner, and numbers and icons fade in and out. I understand the idea of keeping action the center of attention, but with a display this scattered it takes a lot to check health, know where you’re going, what you’re fighting with, how much XP you have, and if an ability is ready to use.

Here’s my take, I’d group things differently and focus on making it easy for the player to get the information needed without spending too much time looking away from the action. There are four persistent elements on the screen, a combo health meter and ammo meter, an XP bar, a mini map, and a radial menu for abilities. Randomly things like weapon ammo, selected weapon, target’s heath and hits, will pop in and out as well. These could have been grouped in a much nicer manner giving the player one location to look at as opposed to scanning all edges of the screen to get the important information.

Grouping elements at the bottom

This example sets the grouping together at the bottom of the screen. The selection weapon is displayed below, and the users aren’t forced to scan every edge. The nonpersistent elements could easily be displayed between the radial menu and the Minimap, or above the various bars on the left or the right. I’ve done one other thing as well. I’ve grouped action related elements, ammo, health, abilities, on the right side of the screen, and bigger picture elements: mini-map, XP on the left. This gives the user one place to look for action and combat information, and a second area that can be ignored until needed during more exploratory moments.

Grouping elements on the sides.

Similarly Ubisoft could opt to group each set on the sides. This unclutters the bottom and provides the user only two locations to look at as opposed to four or five. Again as in the above example, I’ve split the grouping between necessary action related elements and more bigger picture elements.

The goal with any HUD design is to blend so seamlessly it’s unnoticed as a player interacts with a product. A few quick changes and a scattered HUD can be streamlined allowing an easier play experience. Easier play means more immersion and more immersion allows for better storytelling and ultimately a more memorable experience. With a few changes and Ubisoft could be well on their way to creating that memorable experience.

Just picked up Brutal Legend, the latest game created by Tim Schafer and the crew at Double Fine (creators of 2005′s amazing Psychonauts.) After seeing this treatment of a main menu I had to share! Talk about a strong introduction to a games overall tone, even if the heavy metal styling doesn’t impress you you’ll have to admit the level of detail alone is astounding.

It’s so elegantly simple to use and it’s a fun way of handling the main menu. Check out the similar yet slightly different spanish version after the break. It’s refreshing to see Schafer’s level of polish touching even the the main menu. That attention to detail isn’t something you see a lot of developers doing anymore. Good on him and good on the team at Double Fine.

[Edit: So yeah, I thought I had edited it out, but apparently I hadn't. The Spanish version is distorted not some funky european shape. The error has been corrected. My apologies. Proof read!]