Game
Carnage in Space: Crucible



2 years ago

Unfortunately, I've hit a creative block writing story content.

So what's the best cure for creative block? Doing something else!

So here are some design concepts I'm playing with for an eventual sequel.

Design notes below \/


As you can see, this interface builds on the "digital gemstone" aesthetic that I came up with for Crucible. Unlike Crucible, this one swaps out the metallic gray backgrounds for clear, tinted glass ones.

You might have seen a little of this in my Crucible screenshots, but each playable character has their own "highlight color" that the interface will match. Here, the glass will take on a tinted color to match the character it's associated with. This goes for interface panels, the message box, etc. You'll notice the inventory pane on the left side of the screenshot is tinted Nightmare cyan here!

Another touch I just came up with is the new menu cursor - this one is a glowing, animated background that goes behind the text. It's another thing that I hope will add more personality to the (future) game, and I intend to incorporate that dithered transparency gradient for other things, like character portraits.

I also want to make the geometry stand out to make the entire UI more memorable. This is just a rough draft, but you can see the backgrounds at the top corners are molded to the health bars. I intend to do more of that on the left, center, and right panes as well.

You may also notice some other details in this mockup, like that "Swap" button. I wonder what that does?



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