Hey guys, I have a favor to ask all of you: Could you look at these screenshots for my game and tell me which type of ammo indicator you think would work better. The First One has little missiles to denote ammo remaining, colored missile means you have that missile to fire, black silhouette means you dont have that missile. This one has a bar that shows not the actual quantity of ammunition, just the ratio of available and spent munitions. The Red portion is the percentage you have fired and the Green is the percentage you have left. Anyways, thanks for you time, and If you want to play the game, the sorta-current version can be found in my sig, I'm welcome to suggestions about it too.

The bar indicator does not show exactly how much missles I have left,
I might 3/4 missles or 6/8. Perhaps text or lines would clarify the amount of ammo left.

In that case, it is almost same as using the first indicator (colored missles).

Personaly, I like the colored missle better.

i defintely prefer the missile graphics.... as long as there is a reasonable amount. If you are only going to have 4 or 5 then its nice. Too many could clutter your interface. Also, maybe make the silhouettes transparent so out of the corner of your eye, there is no confusion as to whether its a bomb or not. You might consider adding a number too. that way people have a choice of what they look at when checking their ammo.

In most cases, I think pictures are much easier to understand and can be interpreted far faster than bars or numbers, especially in peripheral vision.

good name for the missile too.

Thats one of the problems I had when testing these indicators, too many images. When your gun can hold 50 rounds in it, the screen can get pretty cluttered. Another option I just came up with is to have the indicator change for each weapon you equip, such as use the graph for guns , the missile images for the missiles, etc.

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Original post by nihilisticod good name for the missile too.

LOL, I wish I could claim the credit for that one, the artist came up with it one night and it kind of stuck, probably change it before the final build though.

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Original post by Sir Sapo Thats one of the problems I had when testing these indicators, too many images. When your gun can hold 50 rounds in it, the screen can get pretty cluttered. Another option I just came up with is to have the indicator change for each weapon you equip, such as use the graph for guns , the missile images for the missiles, etc.

For some reason it feels like a regular, numeric counter with some kind of 'digital' font would work best here. Easy to tell at a glance how much ammo you have left, no way to confuse it with a real missile, and can cover range from just a few to many hundred rounds easily...

My opinion would be to stick with the pictures, they are just cooler. However, a modification I would make it placing the missiles on the vertical, instead of horizontal like they are now (i.e. fliping them in 90°). then, they are aligned horizontaly, instead of vericaly like they are now. this way, if you have a lot of missiles, they won't invade the screen, and they will actually look like a bar, so the person can know with periferical vision if they are low on ammo.

I remember only getting a few bombs or rockets in the game. I think the graphics would be fine for up to five of them. For machinegun ammo, though, I think the tech-ish font numbers would be the way to go.

To be honest, I wish I could use guns and rockets at the same tie, instead of switching between them. Maybe a second fire button or something. That way, you could have graphics for the secondary weapon, and the primary cannon would have a number associated with its ammo. These would be on-screen simultaneously.

To reduce clutter, you could remove the big graphic of the equipped weapon. Since both are always active, players won't need such a prominent reminder of what's armed.

Actually, you could leave the big representation of which weapon is armed and make the icons of how much ammo is left much smaller, say within 5 or 10 pixels? You could also stack the ammo vertically and horrizontally as well.


[Edited by - Gyrthok on June 13, 2005 10:06:52 PM]

I'd say both, based on which item it is. For example, machine guns have way more ammo then your mounted sidewinders, so, display the bar for ammo, and the graphics for your missiles. When you get too many missiles, either switch to a numeric display, or a smaller missile graphic.

If you got more than 4 - 5 missiles, you could have a larger icon that represents a "stack" of missiles, so say you had 10 missiles, you'd have 2 large icons, with 9 you'd have 1 large and 4 small. It's easy to differentiate between the two at a glance and takes up less space on screen.

I'd agree with the idea of a high tech font ammo counter, rather than a bar, as long as it's easily readable with a quick glance.