Unit Selection Working continued on Sprint 2
In Sprint 1, we successfully implemented unit selection, unit information extraction and plural selection. It can be said that these work laid the foundation for the improvement of infobox in sprint 2.
In this sprint, we are leaning more towards intuitive interaction design. They are functions that can give players feedback in real time, and can also cooperate with more units to improve the player's overall gaming experience.
Our Sprint 2's new features/functionalities include:
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Semi-selection: VFX for individual units. Lightly effect will appear for the functionality.
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Multiple selection box: A visual tool to aid selection that appears when multiple units are selected with the mouse.
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Display Adjustment: Optimized adjustment to the display effect of Infobox according to the feedback of our user testing.
Our inspiration comes from other RTS games, and the highlight border effect when LOL selects a defense tower.
At this stage, we draw the visual design like this:
However this is too rudimentary.
Given the game's cool-toned map textures, this color might not be a good experience for the player.
In order to show the expressiveness and let the user have a clear feeling of being selected, we renovated the special effect into a white outer glow:
Likewise, subsequent friendly units and other buildings will follow up with the same preset art design.
In the unit selection function of sprint 1, even though we have implemented the multiple unit selection, it is still difficult to be visually detected. This time, we designed a multiple selection box to serve players. Whenever the player drags the selection with the left mouse button pressed, a translucent rectangle with the same area and location as the selection will be generated.
The following code shows what we spawn this rectangle:
Code of selection box
From the user's point of view, this experience similar to "units enclosed by rectangles will be selected" will promote positive feedback from players and improve the overall quality of unit selection.
Through user testing, we realized that appropriately adjusting the timing of the infobox's appearance can increase its presence. Therefore, we adjusted the generation logic of the infobox.
The infobox does not appear when entering the game or when no units are selected.
When the user selects a single/multiple units, the infobox will display the number of units selected.
That's how we implemented the function:
Code of display adjustment
In addition, in the current sprint 2 phase, we learned through cross-team communication that more attributes will be added, namely speed and range.
For more designed unit properties, see here.
Therefore, we designed icons for speed and range, ready to be displayed in the to-do column of the infobox.
Speed:
Range:
The reason why only the selected number is currently displayed:
This feature is highly dependent on the work units of other groups. In today's relatively independent development environment, there is room for further compatibility between the work of different groups.
Since unit properties float dynamically, we cannot directly display a list of "pre-designed" properties.
In sprint 3, we will shift the focus of our work to in-depth communication with other groups to achieve dynamic display of data.
Different from the interview in the previous stage, we use a process that combines user tasks and questionnaire for user-testing this time.
For our Sprint 2's user testing, click here.