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Multiple Revisions – Part of the Plan for GUI and Gameplay

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I read a paper on GUIs and usability for games. It said to expect to remake the GUI 4 times with a 50% improvement per revision on usability.

Luckily a on-paper design counts as a revision, and can be analyzed for usability factors and UI rules of thumb. So I am up to v2 on paper and v3 will be a playable mockup in my game engine. I expect v4 to be made after I have some user-feedback.

Now I suspect the same revisions will apply to my gameplay ideas – I have some great stuff on paper, but I know it will feel a lot different when translated into my game engine and actually played. If I can get a 50% improvement on gameplay on each revision it makes sense to have as many revisions as I can afford before shipping the game. Of course this could take the form of game sequels instead of a 7 year development cycle!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Design, Gameplay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Multiple Revisions – Part of the Plan for GUI and Gameplay”

  1. MGB says:
    June 13, 2010 at 8:31 pm

    Nice doc link there – some good stuff in that. Know what you mean with the 7-year dev cycle – I’m in one myself! Keep on revising :)