For analyzing an RPG interface, I’m going to take a look at
the interface for Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age is something of a game between an RPG and a real time
strategy. The game can be played in real time, but the player is afforded the
option to pause the action and have time to make strategic calls.
Much like with many other games, one of the most important
stats that merits feedback is player and character health. In an rpg, this is
especially important because a lot of strategy can revolve around keeping
characters alive/conscious. Depending on the game, a character falling to 0
Hit-points can cause anything from needing to waste a turn to revive a
character to the character becoming inaccessible for the duration of battle. In
the worst case scenario, a specific character becoming knocked out could result
in a game over. In the case of Dragon Age,
a game over only occurs when all of the characters on the field are knocked
out. However, unlike many other games, there are little to no options afforded
to the player to revive team mates, so feedback on player health is vital. In
battle, character health appears alongside an avatar of the specific character.
The bar is color-coded red and depletes down the side of the curved health bar
when a character takes damage. Characters in game tend to give off certain
sound cues if they take damage or are near death. However, one of the drawbacks
this interface system experiences is that it’s not always readily apparent how
near death a character is. This isn’t to say that the health bar isn’t a good
indicator of how likely a character is to fall (although my personal experience
with the game has shown that there are a fair share of monsters within it that
are capable of killing a character when they are at half-full health) but that
there are few warnings when a character is at low health. Because of the chaos
of battle, it’s difficult to always hear characters give off their sound cues
amidst all the noise of fighting. The visual cues for characters near death
also leave something to be desired. Character avatars will blink red when
taking damage but the effect isn’t always eye-catching and since health
indicators are far away from where the talent bar is located, the player needs
to be able to divide attention between monitoring health and deciding what talents
to use. Perhaps if there were some other form of alert message when a character
were near death or if one of the other cues, such as the character audio or the
blinking red avatars, were more obvious to the player.
Talents and magic within the game are reliant off of their
own point system. The amount of talent/magic points a character has remaining
is indicated alongside their health indicator, taking up space on the left side
of the character avatar instead of the right. As with the health indicator,
this bar will deplete as the points are depleted, though the bar only depletes
when talents or magic are used. Some spells and talents within the game require
that a certain amount of talent/magic points be sacrificed for the duration of
the talent/spell’s activation. When this happens, a corresponding section of
the talent/magic points bar fills with a transparent, glowing white indicator beyond
which the character’s talent/magic points do not increase until the spell/talent
causing the effect is de-activated.
A fair amount of strategy in Dragon Age relies on the placement of a player’s party. Members of
the party tend to be denoted not only by a slight aura around them but also by
a glowing, round base bellow them. Also, thanks to unique designs, it’s
difficult if not impossible to lose a party character amidst the melee within
the game, even though the screen tends to become very crowded from time to time
with enemy monsters. Mousing over a player to switch play to or a monster to
attack will hi-light them with a slight glow, telling the player what he’s
about to select. Character control can also be switched by means of selecting
the character’s avatar at the upper left side of the screen, alleviating the
need to scan the battlefield for characters who might be far away from each
other or who the player may have a difficult time selecting thanks to enemies
crowding around him.
Much of the gameplay revolves around talents. In addition to
simply attacking enemy characters, a player is afforded the option of having a
character use a talent, provided that they currently have enough talent/magic
points to use it. There is a bar located at the bottom of the screen that
houses character talents for quick selection, rather than the much more
cumbersome method of opening up the game’s stat book and selecting the talent
from there. A player can choose what talents to place in the talent bar,
thought the game tends to initially automatically assign talents to the bar as
they are made available to the player. The player is also afforded the option
of assigning items to the talent bar, allowing them to use stat buffing
potions, health items or offensively-used poisons. Mousing over the talents
hi-lights them, much like with characters, and the talents can be used either
by clicking them or by hitting the number key on the keyboard corresponding
with the item’s slot. For example, if the talent or item is situated seventh
from the right on the talent bar, hitting the seven key on the keyboard will
activate the talent. Many talents tend to have a required cooldown, which is
indicated to the player by the given talent turning dark and gradually
illuminating in a brief animation. If there aren’t enough talent/magic points
for a given talent/spell to be used, the spell/talent will be grayed out.
A key element in any rpg is character customization and
“leveling up”. Dragon Age has players
customize their main character from the start, jumping off to a customization
menu when the new game option is selected. There, the player can select their
character’s gender, race, combat class (magician, warrior or rogue) and back story.
All of this is illustrated with buttons with designs that fit well within the
universe, typically made out to look like stained glass window designs. In
addition to the feedback in the form of highlighted buttons, a character model
appears off to the side to show the player what their character currently looks
like due to their customization. The player is afforded the option of
controlling a character’s physical appearance as well by the way of various
toggles and sliding bars, though there isn’t much allowance for customizing the
character’s clothes as much of this is reliant on in-game selection of armor
and equipment.
Advancement is handled via a level up screen. When a
character is ready to level up, a particle effect and shine animates over the
character, followed by a quick music cue. After this, an icon appears on the
character’s avatar where the player can click to enter into a screen to level
the character up. The player puts a given number of points into different
attributes by way of an arrow toggle that allows them to increase or decrease an
attribute, though not past the current number of points (For example, if a
character’s Defense score was 6 and the player added 2 of his available points
to the attribute, the player would be afforded the option to take back 1 or 2
of those points before moving on, but wouldn’t be allowed to reduce the
character’s defense score back to 5 in order to gain an extra point for
spending on other skills). Mousing over an attribute will tell the player what
the attribute controls. At a certain point in the game, the player is allowed
to choose an extra specialization, providing the player has met the right
people in order to unlock the specialization. The screen will transition over
to a page where a player can select what talent or spell they want to learn.
Mousing over the talent or skill reveals what is needed for the player to learn
it, since a character might need to have a certain attribute score or a certain
skill level. On certain occasions, the menu will navigate over to a page
housing skill progression. The player can choose which skill to upgrade
provided he meets the criteria. Once again, mousing over reveals what is needed
for the skill.
Navigation is typically handled via an in-game map. There
are two varieties in Dragon Age; a
large scale map contained within the larger menu where most other player
information is displayed and the smaller in-game map situated at a corner of
the screen. Different icons on the map help to denote landmarks and areas of
interest. Typically, if someone is a trigger for a quest, they will appear
within the game world with an icon floating above their head.
The bulk of the rest of the interface is situated on an
unobtrusive bar at the top of the screen. This menu set mostly consists of
feedback information in the form of player stats. Unique icons are situated in
this bar corresponding to character stats, skills, talents, inventory/equipment
and AI behavior, along with a section detailing collected parts of the world’s
fiction, written documents and quest findings and objectives. Sections such as
the skill lists can’t much be interacted out of outside of looking at the stat
or mousing-over to see what the skill/spell/talent does or what a given stat
controls.
The inventory/equipment screen allows players to interact
with their character’s equipment. The character is displayed as they currently
are in a window on the left, with equipment slots situated around the character
in corresponding positions (for example, a chest armor slot will be near the
character’s chest, foot armor slot near the feet, etc.). The player is able to
interact with the character’s equipment by way of clicking on the equipment and
selecting from a small drop down menu whether to equip, examine or throw away
the equipment in question (or sell/purchase if the player is in a shop window)
or dragging the equipment over to the corresponding slot. The player can also
use the arrows above the picture of the charcter to scroll through different
character’s equipment, in addition to choosing from a drop down menu that
provides the names of all in the party.
The AI customization screen, called Tactics, allows the
player to set individual character behavior by way of drop-down menus and key
phrases. For example, a player can assign a behavior to a character to automatically
use a healing item once they fall bellow a certain percentage of health or to
always attack enemy characters with a certain talent/spell while under a
certain condition. The system is pretty intuitive if a bit overwhelming at
first thanks to the extensive language. The player can also cycle through some
pre-set behavior by way of another drop down menu. This menu seems to control
general behavior, such as if a character will run off to chase an enemy or
stick back near the player during a battle.
The party selection screen is only accessible when the
character is outside of a building and not in battle. Clicking on the
corresponding button brings the player to a scene in which the entire available
party is gathered, with a grouping of round character slots situated on a menu
element beneath them. Mousing over individual characters will hi-light them and
clicking on them will add them to your party. Characters in a player’s party
will not only display in one of the slots bellow the scene but also strike an
action pose. Taking a player off the selected team triggers an animation
wherein the selected character typically sounds disappointed/angry whereas
clicking a character to put them in the party triggers an animation wherein the
character sounds excited, happy or ready to fight.
The codex screen sorts different kinds of information into
different groups and allows the player to open folders to view different
records. It’s light on extra bells and whistles but still follows the games
aesthetic.
Lastly, there’s the typical pause menu where the player can
save or load their game, adjust settings or exit. This interface isn’t as
detailed as the in-game interface but there are little flourishes that show
that it belongs within the game.
All in all, I would rate this interface as very good, aside
from some feedback complaints addressed earlier and an occasional tendency for
the interface to look a bit too polished for the environment in which the game
takes place.
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