Here's a screenshot with annotation from a Civilization style game I'm working on.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5792/unitbuildwindow1.png

A user named burningpet was kind enough to take some time an make an alternative mockup you can see at:

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n229/benkashmir/productionmanager2.jpg

or the one screen design at:

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/949/option1q.png

Each region...

-Can produce one building at a time.
-Can produce as many units simultaneously as it has production slots for.
-Has a limited number of spaces to build on (some buildings can take multiple spaces).

What I'm looking for feedback on:

-Where the information is displayed.
-In what form information is communicated.

What I'm not looking for feedback on:

-Visual quality of the temporary sprites I used.
-Font & color choices

Basically, I want feedback not directly related to the art I used.

<br><br><!–EDIT–><span class=editedby><!–/EDIT–>[Edited by - Tourresh on June 23, 2010 9:10:46 PM]<!–EDIT–></span><!–/EDIT–>

I actually think this is pretty good. It's clean, easy to read and not too cramped. Switching the queues would make more sense though, have the buildings on the left side and units on the other.

EDIT: Oops, you seem to have put Factory, entertainment etc under recruitment. I saw that and assumed the troops were on the other side. My brain fart, sorry.

I forgot to change the example text. Sorry about that.

Personally, I find it to be too much on one screen. Why not have separate Construction and Recruiting Tabs ?

Is this meant to be RTS where super fast click management is paramount? If so, then I can understand why you're going with this design. But, if this is more MMORTS ala Evony/Travian, or a more relaxed single-layer game like Civ ... then I'd say simplify it and have the player manage either construction or recruiting on a single dedicated tab/panel. You can always show them the summary that includes both construction and recruiting by region as the gateway into the detailed panels.

Hi Tourresh, I presume this is the game with the Diplomacy style map and simultaneous movement?

If so, I imagine each player will be doing administration for about, say, 50 provinces after expansion. If handling each region involves a separate screen, that's a lot of work you're asking the player to do. Playing multiplayer Freeciv certainly is a lot of work when you grow beyond 10 cities, and city screens there look a lot like yours.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I am working on a similar game. In my opinion, everything works much better if you select the unit or building you want to produce on the technology tree, where each unit and building is already featured, and then you switch the screen from the technology tree to the map (perhaps by pressing F1 and F2), and choose the province where you want it built. It's much less of a click-fest that way.

[Edited by - Wiggin on June 23, 2010 4:40:26 AM]

Showing all resource types at all times is cluttering and pointless. Just show the components required. If the player cannot build anything using unobtainium in a particular region and there is no unobtainium supply in that particular region, they don't need constant on-screen access to the backstory of unobtainium, period.

Try to minimize clicks required. For each click, consider if it's truly necessary. For instance, consider whether mouseover would work instead of selection, and when. If the player needs a super-detailed report of something once in a blue moon, you can have a separate screen for that and that only, with streamlined operation 99% of the time. Master of Orion (the original, not the sequels) does this beautifully. Play it if you haven't already.

There is also no point in the option to show/hide unbuildable stuff. If you want them to be in the list e.g. to enable the player to more easily clear the requirements to build them, just fade the text on the list or use another clear visual indication that the thing cannot be built. Optionally, the unbuildable stuff could go to the bottom of the list, which is a tradeoff between quicker access to the buildable stuff and the better habitual learnability of a list which is always in the same order.

The building slot display on the bottom left works best for showing the player the status of the slots and especially free slots. For quickly scanning and learning what buildings have already been built, the list is better, so mark clearly the existing buildings on the list. Can the player make more than one? If so, put the building count in parentheses after the name on the list.

And seeing how low the building slot count is on the example picture, you don't really even need a production queue for buildings. Either you can have the player choose next one when the previous one finishes, or you could just let them burn resources building all at once. If it's important the region doesn't become fully operational after the building time of the longest-building structure, that can be done by making buildings require other buildings.

A large button instead of small cross for 'close window'. That's the one thing the player will certainly activate every time he comes to the menu (unless he uses keyboard shortcuts). Depending on what your main view (if any), other views and the navigation between views is like, it might be a good idea to give the player multiple exit routes, such as 'show on world map' and 'show in region list' instead of a single 'exit' button. (But don't use those as the actual text on the buttons. Too long.)

Seems similar to the moo2 build screen:

http://img94.imageshack.us/i/moo2buildscreen.png/

I'll probably have separate overview panels that just show recruitment and just show buildings in addition to this to make it easier to get a big picture, but for turn to turn orders using the combined screen should save time.

I'm confused as to why the current method I'm using is a click-fest.

My current method: Click the location, click the build/unit to be produced.

Wiggin Method: Click technology screen, click unit, click location.

That's two total clicks versus your three.

50 provinces? That's closer to the total number of provinces rather than the number a player will control.

Even with that many provinces the plan is to have less than a forth of them as places where units can be produced. Most other provinces will simply serve as battlegrounds and places to harvest resources.

Buildings can be built everywhere so that's a harder issue.

In most strategy games I play, you are doing something wrong if you aren't always building something. There's very few times where I'm not building in every single province I have. How do we stop this? Here's a few ideas I came up with.

-High building prices so that most provinces won't be actively constructing new buildings.
-Longer building times
-Incentives to leave space unoccupied (harvesting bonuses or something).
-Have buildings take up a large amount of space.
[In many games if I want this province to be a mining place I'll build a mine, then a forge, than some sort of smelter thing, then some factory, etc. If the main mining building took up a large portion of the available space it would accomplish the same goal, with many less buildings and micro. In general, I would prefer that you upgrade the main mining building when you get a new tech, than build a basic mining facility and then add on a mining amplification building]

Looks like you posted in the middle of my reply Stroppy.

Quote:

Original post by Stroppy Katamari Showing all resource types at all times is cluttering and pointless. Just show the components required. If the player cannot build anything using unobtainium in a particular region and there is no unobtainium supply in that particular region, they don't need constant on-screen access to the backstory of unobtainium, period.

I didn't really think about only showing the needed components, but now that I stop to think about it I still don't know if I'll make a change because:

1. Showing all the resources all the time gives a familiar order and position to the resources letting players quickly finding the resource they are looking for without scanning through a list that changes depending on what is needed.

2. Similarly, it helps make the number of types of resources seem smaller. Having resources pop in and out of screen when they are needed can make it seem like there are more than there are and it makes less back and forth switching between screens to check.

3. By showing resources that have 0 of a type, it serves a positive purpose in indicating a shortage to the player. It's easier for a player to remedy a resource shortage if it's staring them in the face all the time. Even if they can't directly fix it now, by mousing over they can see the path they can take to get that resource and why they would want to get it.

Quote:

There is also no point in the option to show/hide unbuildable stuff. If you want them to be in the list e.g. to enable the player to more easily clear the requirements to build them, just fade the text on the list or use another clear visual indication that the thing cannot be built.

Moving them to the bottom is a good option, I just worry of the whole list being long if there's forty+ units on it at some point.

Quote:

The building slot display on the bottom left works best for showing the player the status of the slots and especially free slots. For quickly scanning and learning what buildings have already been built, the list is better, so mark clearly the existing buildings on the list. Can the player make more than one? If so, put the building count in parentheses after the name on the list.

Some indication of whether multiples of buildings can be built is a good idea. I don't know about mixing in the built buildings with the available ones as it could be hard to discern whether a building was already built, could be built, or one already exists, but another could be built. I can use numbers prefixes/suffixes, italics, colors, or symbols, but none of them seem very intuitive.

Quote:

A large button instead of small cross for 'close window'.

I'll definitely be doing something about that small button and finding some more ways for players to exit.

A user named burningpet was kind enough to take some time an make an alternative mockup you can see at:

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n229/benkashmir/productionmanager2.jpg

or the one screen design at

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/949/option1q.png

[Edited by - Tourresh on June 23, 2010 9:08:25 PM]