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Something that I don't think many Indie Developers give much thought to is the presentation of information-- the layout. I bring this point up because the other day, I introduced a game, Armed Girl RPG: Princess Wing on one of my many Discord Communities, and this very topic came up. People were saying how the game suffers from a poor layout design, and it reads more like a dictionary or text book. In other words, it's boring.
So that got me to thinking about a game's layout of its information. What do you think makes for a good presentation? Is it the insertion of artwork, is it eye-friendly tables, is it the number of columns (single, two, or three)? Maybe it's the different uses of font size, and even different font faces that are used. The color scheme? Maybe extras, like footnotes, or margin notes?
And this brings up what would be considered too much layout presentation. At what point does the layout distract from presenting the information?
What are some great examples of good layout versus poor layout?
One of the examples that mentioned as being of the poor quality was Vampire the Masquerade. And to compliment this, one example of a system of having an awesome layout is Cypher System. I haven't actually looked at Vampire the Masquerade yet, but I have experience with Cypher System. Core aspects of its layout include the wide page margin area for hyperlinked-notes, colored-coded sections, and two distinct fonts, one for text, the other for headings.
So that got me to thinking about a game's layout of its information. What do you think makes for a good presentation? Is it the insertion of artwork, is it eye-friendly tables, is it the number of columns (single, two, or three)? Maybe it's the different uses of font size, and even different font faces that are used. The color scheme? Maybe extras, like footnotes, or margin notes?
And this brings up what would be considered too much layout presentation. At what point does the layout distract from presenting the information?
What are some great examples of good layout versus poor layout?
One of the examples that mentioned as being of the poor quality was Vampire the Masquerade. And to compliment this, one example of a system of having an awesome layout is Cypher System. I haven't actually looked at Vampire the Masquerade yet, but I have experience with Cypher System. Core aspects of its layout include the wide page margin area for hyperlinked-notes, colored-coded sections, and two distinct fonts, one for text, the other for headings.
