Level Up.pdf

Icon Has Cheezburger? 181
The first thing you ’ ll notice on many RTS and adventure games is that there
are a lot of icons on screen. Icons for tracking stats; icons for weapons;
icons for magic spells; icons for the contents of bags of holding and whatnot.
I believe part of the allure of these icon - heavy games is that the player makes
lots of choices, has lots of things to build and collect. That ’ s OK — not every
game needs to be like one made by Oscar winner Peter Jackson 4 .
So as you are making icons for your game, here are 157 5 things to think about.
• Pick the right image for your icon. If pressing your icon builds tanks,
then guess what picture should be on the icon 6 ?
• Make sure the image that you use is current and accurate. I was working
with a team who had an icon for a stamp function (like an ink stamp)
that looked like a postage stamp. Many of the younger testers didn ’ t
even know what a postage stamp was!
• Color- code your icons. Fiery punch? Make it red! (Or at least orange.)
Chilling hand of frost? I ’ ll give you one guess (blue). You can take color
coding one step further and make the image or background of the icon
a representative color. For example, all the icons that advance the player
to the next screen could be green, and your sword combat icons could
all have a red background or feature that color in the artwork (make sure
it ’ s a different shade of red than the one you are using for fire attacks!).
The goal is for the player to understand similarities between icons and
be able to choose the correct one at a glance.
• If color isn ’ t enough, then use shapes as a differentiator.
• Try and avoid text in your icons. Not only will you have to change them
for localization, but they may be too small to read.
• If you are going to use text (like a word) as an icon, make sure it is
legible and looks more like a button than straight text.
• Never, ever combine several visual elements (like text and a character
and a logo) on one icon.
• Surround your icon with a strong black or white outline to make them
“ pop ” off the background.
• Look at all of your icons together to make sure you aren ’ t creating any
similar- looking ones. Try to make each of them as individual as possible.
• A good trick is to have text of an item ’ s name (spell or whatever) appear
if the player moves their cursor over the icon. A reminder from time to
time never hurts!
4
In 2004 for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King . He did that HUD - less King Kong
game too. Weren ’ t you paying attention?
5 Give or take 150 or so.
6
I can ’ t believe you are actually looking down here for an answer!