Level Up.pdf

172 LEVEL 8 Sign Language—HUD and Icon Design
Health bar
1. Health bar/lives
2. Targeting reticule
3. Ammunition gauge
4. Inventory
5. Score/experience
6. Radar/map
7. Context- sensitive prompt.
A staple of action, adventure, platform, and shooter games, the health bar
represents how close the player is to death, or having to restart for some
other reason. Health bars are the most flexible of the HUD elements and
come in a variety of forms and imagery depending on the game:
• Many health bars are bars “ fi lled ” with color (often red) or icons. As the
player takes damage, they lose a percentage of the bar or the color
empties from the icon. When the bar is gone, the player dies …
• or vice versa, you can have a damage bar. When this bar is full, the
player dies.
• The health bar may represent the status of some sort of on - board
defense system, as seen in the Metroid games.
• Health can be represented as shields. When all of your shields are gone,
the last hit destroys the player, as seen in Star Wars: X- Wing (Lucasarts,
1993). Shields can also be represented as a numeric percentage.
• Health can be represented as a story device. In Assassin ’ s Creed (EA,
2007), the health bar represents the game ’ s narrative. Stray too far from
the “ correct story ” and the narrator says “ that ’ s not the way it happened. ”
Then the character is “ reset ” back to the proper point in the story.
• Just because a player loses health, it doesn ’ t mean they can ’ t get it
back. If Halo players find cover and wait, their health bar eventually
recharges back to full. This “ wait for health ” technique is becoming
increasingly popular in action games and I think it ’ s a pretty good
compromise in lieu of a game over/death screen, which pulls the player
out of the game.