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| Zachary O. Toups, Andruid Kerne, Daniel Caruso, Erin Devoy, Ross Graeber, Kyle Overby |
Below you may browse the coordinator UI mockups for Rogue Signals, generated using OmniGraffle. The coordinator interface is designed to provide maximum information about the virtual overlay in the game, while allowing the coordinator the ability to customize focus dynamically.
In order to realize our goal, the interface is broken out into four sections, as indicated by the graphic below. The sections are as follows:
Close-up display: The close-up display is the coordinator's primary window into the virtual world. This component has the ability to follow any harvester or predator that has been clicked, keeping that entity at the center of the view and highlighting the corresponding entry in the team status column. In addition, it can be scrolled using the mouse or keyboard and zoomed using the mouse scroll wheel or key presses. This view functions as a way for the coordinator to actively monitor an aspect of the game in a flexible manner.
Team status: This column shows the state of each of the team's harvesters, each in its own box. The harvesters are color-coded to indicate their status (whether they are active, inactive, or disconnected) and an icon shows what direction they are facing. The read out below their names indicates game coordinates and current cardinal direction. Finally, a pair of meters below the harvester's icon indicate wireless signal strength and the number of GPS satellite locks, two components necessary to determine if the player may soon be disconnected. We are determining a visual language to convey which meter is which.
Game progress: The bottom bar indicates the team's progress in the game through a time meter and a set of stars showing how many goals are in the game (the number of stars) and how many have been collected (the number of stars of a different color, currently a darker yellow).
Mini-map: The mini-map displays the entire playing field in miniature. This allows the coordinator to keep appraised of the entire game situation, while focusing on the close-up display.
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We chose to use green to indicate harvesters that were currently active, gray to indicate harvesters that had been deactivated by the predators, blue to indicate harvesters that had been disconnected (either due to lack of a wireless signal or no GPS fixes), and red for predators. The green provides a visual language that the harvester is okay, while red indicates the danger of the predators. Gray was chosen because it was ghost-like and still contrasting enough to be seen.
For the goals both on the maps and on the game progress area, we chose to use yellow and blue to indicate uncapture and captured goals, respectively.
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In version 2, we changed several elements from the first version. The first change was color, the value of the lighter checkboards was lowered, to reduce contrast and make the grid slip into the background where it belongs. The red, yellow, and blue were all desaturated, so that they blend better with the darker colors. The unfortunate side effect of all of this is that the green in the timer bar now appears to pop.
Two other major changes in this revision were the predator model and the timer bar. The predators, which originally looked just like red harvesters, were too difficult to distinguish. We decided to remake the predators in a way that they have a clear facing, and look a bit more menacing. The timer bar now has a scale, so that the actual time remaining is more easy to ascertain.
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Our current version addresses several percieved shortcomings of the 2nd version. The first is the lack of clairity in the color language of the goals. Before, a yellow goal was not yet collected, while a blue one was. However, the yellow-blue status is not readily clear, and the blue matches very closely to the blue of a disconnected harvester. Instead, we chose to use dark and bright yellow. This way, the bright yellow goals stand out everywhere, even in the mini-map. The darkened goals become almost invisible, which is important, since they are no longer a critical component of the game at hand.
In this version, we also redesigned the timer bar, making the time markers more clear, and eleminating the need to have "mins" written in several locations. The new timer bar is also color-coded, so that when it is full, it is green, and it transitions to red through yellow as time is depleted. This color language should be generally more clear.
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