This week I have planned to sort all of the basics regarding menus, settings, and saving/loading systems. A strange order of development I know, but I feel more confident developing game content when I know it meshes well with a pre-existing access infrastructure. While I will probably come back to these elements of Vacuous in the future when I need to waste time polishing stuff up, I intend to cover all the important stuff this week.
So far I have implemented the intro sequence which gives the company name and then flows into the title screen. In order to do this, I had to sort out the branding I intend to use, including my company logo (secret) and the title text of the game (also secret-ish). I'm okay at design, but I'm not much of an artist. Since I'm running a faster than usual development schedule as just one dude, many decisions fall to the whims of intuition instead of meetings, research, and statistics (for better or worse). A game's presentation is important both commercially and artistically. Part of that presentation is the branding.
Below are some sketches I did of potential text for the game title on the title screen. The one I chose to use is the one which is least crappy (I think...):
Those first ten seconds of a game's opening have a profound impact on the user, both as a newcomer and veteran. As a newcomer, the opening sequence and title screen set the tone. As a veteran, they stand in the way of playing the game. The tricky design challenge is to balance the two; a short enough intro sequence not to bug those who boot up the game every day, but within that small time period, able to communicate all necessary information to the player and get them intrigued by the game to come. Another question regarding the opening sequence involves what parts of it can be skipped; a long opening cut scene, for instance, can both draw in new players and also be entirely passed over by veterans.
Next, menus. The most fun part of video game development.
