A Question of Style

[mlepage]

Do people like their interface to look more or less like a standard Windows interface, or do they prefer the custom look that most games seem to have?

I'll give two examples. First of all, let's say you have onscreen menu buttons, maybe they even appear over your game. If you make them look like a regular grey pushbutton, they do look kind of weird floating over a non-grey background. So in this case I prefer some sort of custom button look that looks pleasing over top of the game.

On the other hand, I have an in-game level editor with a toolbar. Right now, the toolbar is the grey type you might find in IE (on Windows, not on Pocket PC), with buttons that click down. It looks nice. It allows me to have colourful icons (over the grey background). But would such a standard looking toolbar look out of place in a game with otherwise custom widgets? On the other hand, let's say I gave my toolbar a custom "skinned" look, that isn't grey. Then, it might be harder to make colourful icons that look good on such a non-standard (non-grey) toolbar.

Same with the software keyboard. I started with nice grey pushbuttons with the pseudo-3D look, then switched to a custom look. They both look nice. I can't decide. What do you like?

[James S]

The more customized the menus are the more polished the game will appear. And with a stylus interface there are many GUI improvemnts that could be made over the standard drop down boxes.

[Maf54]

Well my opinion seems to be that windows standard look is fine on the PC for on my PPC i hate games with gray push buttons.

[mlepage]

I'm making all my own widgets so I am free to draw them however I wish and also to implement their behaviour however I wish.

I do recognize that there are advantages to the standard look and feel. Firstly, that it is recognizable, and secondly, that icons tend to look nice and discernable over the grey background. (Colourful icons don't look nice over a colourful background.)

The standard grey look I was thinking of is the 3D look of Windows on the PC, not the flat look of Windows CE on the Pocket PC.

But I do understand that the main disadvantage of such a look, for games, is that it is considered mundane and un-creative. And I do want my game to be nice.

Maybe I should have a slick interface in the game, but treat the built-in level editor as more of a productivity application, with a standard, functional look.

But more likely, I will try to create a slick toolbar that still has icons that are functional and easily discerned, even on a non-grey background.

As for behaviour, I already have to make some changes to accomodate the stylus. Simple mouseover events do not work unless the mouse is down, so things like rollover and tooltips aren't very feasible.

[Maf54]

Yeah thtas kinda what I meant. Applications are fine looking standard to me, cause the are made for productivity not for fun.