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Who is the king of interface, HUD and menu design?

D

dofry

That's "Dr." dofry to you.
The title wording is making my head hurt. What is an interface and what is part of it?
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
The Dota 2 menu is damn impressive. Your inventory screen, embedded videos, a 3D model viewer, other people's profiles, reading up on lore and skills, everything is there, not interrupting you watching a game, playing a game or searching for the next game.
 
M

MYE

Member
Bad looking menus and HUD elements can completely destroy a game visually.

diablo_characters_espanol.png


VS

PSABR-Character-select.jpg


7417-12-humorous-gifs-of-frightened-kids-5.gif
 
K

Keasar

Member
I am a big fan of Amplitudes GUI design for their Endless Space game.

HQgf9.jpg


So clean, crisp, informative and lovely.
 
N

NSider

Member
JimPanzer said:
Matsuno RPG's

Tactics Ogre
image_thumb192.png
Click to expand...

Uh, hell no. I was playing that very game just 10 minutes ago. The interface looks nice enough, but it's tedious to navigate, full of tiny icons, and requires way too many button presses for even simple things like party selection before battle, moving units, and comparing equipment while shopping.

And don't get me started on having to use the d-pad to navigate the map grid in that weird fixed camera angle. It's pretty awkward (up = up right, right = down right.. etc). The least they could do is use the analog stick as a cursor, instead of just free look.
 
E

epmode

Member
SteveWD40 said:
Blizzard at the GOAT at menu design for sure, but I do love the GW2 UI, it's so clean yet has strong art direction.
Click to expand...

Guild Wars 2's UI is lovely. Movable, resizable, stylish, and oh god the zoomable map is the best thing ever.

Endless Space would be up there as well if it scaled to high resolutions. It's unusable at my native resolution.
 
D

djplaeskool

Member
Hiroshi Minagawa
Lead UI Designer for FFXII and FFXIV:ARR

The UIs for these games are awesome, easy to read, simple to follow, scales nicely with increased complexity.
As far as XIV is concerned, the Cross Hotbar scheme for controllers is godlike.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Agreed with Dead Space and Riddick.

I would put Brutal Legend up there too, not just the live-action menu but also the map and fonts.
 
F

Flayer

Member
Dead Space blew my mind with how good it was. The entire HUD being part of the in-game world and being so good too was an incredible achievement. Still sets the bar.
 
SJRB

SJRB

Gold Member
I think the little moment in Titanfall when you get in the titan and the five screens individually light up to show the view is one of the most remarkable things I've seen in a long time.

It's a moment that takes about a second, but it really stood out for me.
 
T

Tain

Member
I always loved the beatmania IIIDX menus. Seeing 6th Style in 2003 and simply using the modifier menu was awesome, though the controller plays a big part of that. Sadly I can't seem to find anything good online demonstrating them.

And they just got slicker-looking over time, even though they stuck around in standard definition for a bit too long.
 
D

Deleted member 59090

Unconfirmed Member
MYE said:
Only one comes to my mind.
And I can't even think of a close second place...
Click to expand...

And then you turn on Hearthstone and it feels like it's 2002 again. It's so bad...
 
K

KirbyKid

Member
Mendoza said:
Masahiro Sakurai

Meteos

meteos-20050621010915971-1156600_640w.jpg


......


Amazing stuff. Great use of stylistic minimalism. A lot of the menus also have a bunch of haptic feedback like dragging menu items around with the stylus on the DS titles, or moving the menu perspective around with the C-Stick on the Gamecube titles.
Click to expand...

I'm glad someone brought these up.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
As gameplay huds metroid prime and dead space have the best ones without a doubt.

ScOULaris said:
While it may not be the best interface ever, I feel compelled to give a special shout-out to Persona 4's menus:

persona-4-menu.jpg


They had a really cohesive, sleek aesthetic to them, and they fit the modern-jazzy vibe of the game perfectly. I especially liked the use of animated silhouettes in the backgrounds of the menus.
Click to expand...

It's even better and cleaner in Golden.
P4 menus have log of style, beautiful closing and opening animations using the background and best of all are really clean. Probably the best menu of any japanese RPG.
 
C

ChronotriggerJM

Member
Persona 4 Golden
Dead space
Wipeout
Borderlands 2

Come to mind for menus

Any game that let's me remove or minimize as much as possible for huds. I hate all the clutter.
 
C

Cheeky

Member
Studio liverpool and the Wipeout games

WipeoutFury.jpg


I also like the one in 2048 a lot, but that's probably a more acquired taste. I cant find a screenshot of it though.
 
S

Synth

Member
Cheeky said:
Studio liverpool and the Wipeout games

WipeoutFury.jpg


I also like the one in 2048 a lot, but that's probably a more acquired taste. I cant find a screenshot of it though.
Click to expand...

I was going to go with Studio Liverpool also, but I wanted to use Wipeout 2097's godlike UI, HUD and Load Screen. I couldn't find any decent quality images though.

That loading screen was so awesome.
 
T

TyrantGuardian

Member
Wtf at people saying Blizzard. Diablo 3 and SC2 are pretty horrible when it comes to UI design. Bad fonts, janky feel and important info hidden behind a bunch of garbage, in some cases even hidden behind friggin' option checkboxes.

See also: Hearthstone crafting interface - complete disaster. Though that is still in beta, to be fair.

Now, Endless Space, THAT is good UI design. At least once you understand what in the world "FIDS" refers to.
 
D

Dinosaur Tamer

Member
Zoator said:
Civilization V for me:
Click to expand...

Civ V's UI is full of extremely clever design decisions. I love it.

Boken said:
these arent "designed", theyre just pretty.

my favourite designed UI/HUD goes to dead space
Click to expand...

That's just silly. Every interface is designed - be it consciously or unconsciously. They don't just appear out of thin air.

And the ones he listed are not merely pretty, but also extremely well done on a functional level.

Completely agree on Dead Space, though. Absolutely amazing UI.
 
F

fred

Member
As far as HUDs are concerned High Voltage Software are streets ahead of anyone else. The Conduit had its fair share of problems but the HUD was fantastic - you could move the HUD items around anywhere you wanted and could also adjust the transparency of them. I'm surprised nobody has 'borrowed' the idea tbh, it was great.
 
S

Skeleton

Banned
Been said already but Bungie, really do know where it's at for HUD and Menu screens.

And from what has been seen I think Destiny is going to have an awesome Layout too!
 
S

Scuzzle

Neo Member
I am a huge fan of Dragon Age: Origins' UI. At least for presentation. I just remember it being very clean and sleek.
 
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