All the Game User Interfaces are made of two main elements: text and icon. Therefore, these two elements, in another word, are the two ways of presenting a Game User Interface:
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The first element is Text. It is a powerful tool that is often overlooked or at least underestimate by Designer working on game interfaces. The style of text can also set mood of the game as well as color. Each font has a personality. A font that is handwritten and ―scratched up-looking‖ might be a great choice for an extreme sport game, while a smooth and flowing script font might be great for a horse riding game targeted at young female players. It is also possible to make a great inter-face design using only text. Font choice, size, placement, color, and type effects can greatly im-prove the design of an interface. (Fox 2005)
Nonetheless, in reality, no one likes to read a lot of text when playing a video game. For this rea-son, text should only be used when it is absolutely necessary. If the information is so important that text must be put in the interface, then it needs to be easy to read. If text is hard to read be-cause it is too small or is not clear enough, the user is likely to ignore it and move on. Additional-ly, in many cases, it has been proved that text can be used in the background merely as a design element. And the purpose of this background text is to set a mood. (Fox 2005)
Furthermore, fonts or text styles are an essential element in design text. Fonts can easily be made by using software to manipulate the font design. Most game engines require that an artist create all the fonts. Some advanced engines have tools that can take a standard font and convert it to game format. Even in these cases, it is good to understand how a font works because it is often helpful to edit the font directly. The most common format for a game font is white text placed in a grid. Fonts can also be a great place to put all kinds of images; numbers, dashes, symbols, and icons can all be put into a font file. These icons and images can be used in the game just like a font. A common example of using icons in a font is when creating a console game and small images of the controller buttons are placed in the font (e.g. the Xbox 360 icon). (Fox 2005)
The second element is Icon. Beside text, it is another important method of communication in an interface. Nevertheless, displaying information graphically is always more interesting than dis-playing a lot of text. For instance, if an amount of money must be shown, consider using gold coins instead of a number amount. If the amount of energy character has left must be displayed, consider using a fill-bar. So, icons can be used for almost everything in the interface. Although they usually take a lot more time to create than would a paragraph of straight text, they make the game a whole lot more fun to play. (Fox 2005)
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What is more, great icons can accommodate the game to the user without text. Text can used to reinforce an icon, but the better the icons are, the less text will be needed. The key to creating a great icon is choosing the right image to represent the functionality. For example, for a button that allows the player to attack an enemy, a crossed sword icon may be a great solution. Many stand-ard icons, or icons that always mean the same thing, are used in video games. Players already know what these icons mean and can get up to speed more quickly if these standard icons ap-pear in the game. For instance, many game have a save feature, and a common icon for the save feature is a floppy disk. Consequently, it is important to take advantage of player‘s past experi-ences by using images that they are familiar with. However, in order to have a better impression from the players, these icons should be customized to fit the look of the game. Moreover, for non-game standard icons; for instance, a symbol used in a bathroom door, a stop icon in music player software, or even a minus and plus sign, these icons can also be used in designing a game icon, since most people can recognize their meaning. (Fox 2005