Andrew Moxon

Gundam HUD mockup.

The color scheme is mostly grays, blues, golds, and de-saturated reds. The reds are for shield guage, ammo, lock-on reticule, and radar sweep, because those are the key HUD components that you will be looking at most often. Blue is the base color on the bottom, because it stands out against the ground, and gray stands out against most everything because we are fighting in mainly earthly/planetary terrain. There is a consistency of shapes/forms to unify all of the HUD elements, and it is balanced horizontally to achieve an aesthetically pleasing play experience. There are no bars on the top of the screen so that the player has full view of the horizon and skys, for Gundams are known to fly and thrust, and players will often be looking up.

Here's my Gundam HUD mockup:

1. Shield Bar (depletes as Gundam's shield is injured. After shield is down, bodyparts take damage)

2. Gundam schematic (displays which bodyparts are injured, and to what extent)

3. Thruster (full = filled to the top, empty = at bottom)

4. Overheat (as thruster charge goes down, the heat grows. If gundam gets too hot, the thruster will have a temporary stun)

5. Current Weapon (displays the silhouette of whichever weapon gundam is using)

6. Ammo/energy gauge (whatever the weapon uses to fire will deplete visually on this bar, with full being all the way at the right, and draining to the left)

7. Ammo display (a secondary display of how much ammo the gun has left in this clip/charge, and total -- in numerical format. First number is in clip, second is total remaining. Ex. 87 | 12 means 87 shots or % energy left in the "clip," and 12 remain after that.)

8. Center reticle/aimer (aim at target for machine guns/secondary weapon -- non lock-on)

9. Radar (triangle portion sweeps around to check for incoming targets. X's are enemies, O's are allies)

10. Lock-on reticle (for missiles and other lock-on weapons)

The basis for Book of Power's graphical interface is a child's story book, with a "page-based" GUI -- everything you can click to go to the next level, break a word up, and move around is on the page of a book and is diegetic in nature. Everything will look as if it is illustrated, and the calligraphy will appear to have been done by hand on the canvas-looking pages.

Gameplay video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRiLoJ4x5j0

Perfect Dark 64 was a revolutionary shooter for its time. While the multi-player didn't quite match that of Goldeneye 64 in most regards, the single player and weapon selection is where it stood out. It is still mimicked to this day in many of the weapons and FPS gameplay concepts it introduced, and Halo's weapons are based heavily off of mechanics which Perfect Dark 64 established. It also pushed the N64 to its max in terms of hardware rendering, and looked great for its time (though it is now hard on the eyes).

In terms of weapon choice, the player could choose between various human and extraterrestrial weapons ranging from scoped pistols, to alien sub-machine guns (Mauler -- inspiration for Halo alien weapons), guns which transformed out of laptops, alien machine guns that could release their clip on one click, automatic shotguns, alien sniper rifles that could see body heat through walls, and even blender-like grinding melee weapons (Reaper).

The story was also somewhat compelling, and the gameplay was superb. The co-operative play worked very well, and provided hours upon hours of fun.

Wireframe:

Wireframe Breakdown:

1. Ammunition in clip - this is always visible on the screen, and at full bar, it is filled to the maximum amount of ammo you can fit in one clip. As you shoot it decreases, when you reload, it fills up.

2. Ammunition total - also persistently visible, and it displays how much total ammo you have for the selected gun. It depletes as you reload (by a clip's-worth of ammunition), and is filled up as you pick up ammo on the ground. There is a maximum number of bullets that you can carry.

3. Gun mode status - displays as a solid red vs. yellow box depending on what mode of firing your gun is in. Each gun has two, and yellow is the secondary/special state. As you switch, letters come out and slide to the left to tell the user what each state does.

4. Text display - alerts player of things like ammunition pickup, shield pickup, gun pickup, or anything that needs to be conveyed through text.

5. Weapon being held - off center, aimed toward the middle point of the screen (6)

6. NO CROSSHAIR - I believe you are able to turn it on, but the good players play without it, and because of the way the gun (5) is angled, it is not too difficult to know where your bullets will be firing

The GUI/HUD has a very square/sharp look to it, which is holistically integrated - text, shapes, and layout all seem to add to this.

Drew - gameplayShot, Perspective, Title, Aesthetics Menu
Michaela - How To Access..., Instruction Screen...
Michael - WaterGardenCreateMenu, WaterGardenCreateUse
Ryan - Watergarden1, Watergarden2, Watergarden3

Updated proposal:
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