I’ve started work on creating a new GUI from scratch. So far I’ve ignored anything artistic and focused purely on components and layout, so all the drafts below feature boxy black and white buttons. More interesting shapes can be applied at a later stage.
Here’s my proposal for GUI layout on a 1366x768 display, relatively small but not the smallest possible.
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The HP and ATP bars are in the top left corner as @meandmy10 proposed. Each is labelled with its name, current value and maximum value for this generation. One thing I’m unsure about is whether there theoretically is a maximum amount of ATP, since it isn’t stored anywhere. If that’s the case, a progress bar can’t be used.
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Above these I’ve placed a few pieces of inconsequential information, such as the version number, stage and species name, plus any other similar data anyone can think of. I know everybody was against keeping the species name, but I quite like the idea of having it on the screen, though this time far smaller than in the current GUI.
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Across the top is the reproduction meter. From what I can gather and remember, there are certain compounds used exclusively for reproduction and repair (such as amino acids), so these will be spaced in a line to give an at-a-glance understanding of how close the player is to the next generation. Are these types of compounds stored anywhere? If so, the bar length will be maximum storage capacity with the amount needed to reproduce represented by a line somewhere in the bar. If not, the bar length will be the amount needed to reproduce. The arrow at the right of the reproduction meter hides it (see the image below for what it looks like when this happens).
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In the top right corner is the editor button. @NickTheNick is all for having it as purely a hotkey, but most of us seem to disagree, so it can be both a hotkey and a button. Until the required compounds are collected, it will be greyed out.
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I’ve included a basic fossilisation panel, which isn’t permanently on-screen. It appears when the player clicks another cell (or maybe just their nucleus?) and is fixed to a point in the screen until the player clicks somewhere else. Or it could have a close button.
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The bottom left still features the menu, but it’s considerably stripped down from its current version. Clicking it pauses the game, creates a grey filter over everything and shows the pause menu (see the image below). Something we haven’t really discussed with relation to the GUI is the suicide button, which kills the player’s own cell. There’ll have to be a confirmation box to prevent unwanted suicides. I’m wary about placing it so close to the menu for that reason, so if you have better suggestions I’m all for them.
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Above the suicide button is the processes button. I think @tjwhale’s proposal for a processes display is clever and intuitive, but it’s far too big to fit on the main GUI. Instead, I propose that clicking the processes button pauses the game and shows a display of all compounds, processes and organelles in the configuration tjwhale suggested across the whole screen.
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I’ve messed with meandmy10’s idea for compound representation a little. On the right hand side is an expandable panel (controlled using an arrow similar to that for the reproduction meter) listing every possible compound, current stores and total storage space. There’s a scroll bar to the right to navigate. Beside each is a checkbox with which the player can select the compounds they’d like to have displayed on-screen at all times. Those selected are copied to the lower bar, with a horizontal scroll bar to navigate if there are too many to display on-screen. Each can be hidden again with the checkbox. Thinking about it, there are two things about my design I’d changed already. The checkboxes aren’t needed since the player can just click a compound bar, and it might be useful to add a rescaling bar below the scoll bar so the player can optionally change how long the compound boxes in the lower bar are if they want to see many at once.
Here’s what happens when you select the menu button (with bonus reduced GUI in the background thanks to the two arrow buttons):
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Quicksave is the save system we have now, where clicking it creates an un-nameable save file. In the future, this will sit alongside the proper save and load options, each opening a new menu over the top of the screen.
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Statistics should show all the interesting CPA graphs and evolutionary lineages (think the evolution tree in Species: ALRE). Again, another menu should appear. This is really an option for the more dedicated players and isn’t relevant to gameplay, which is why it’s now hidden within a click.
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In the future help should give players the option to replay the tutorial or read some documentation on various compounds, organelles and environmental features.
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Options is options.
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The two exit buttons are pretty self-explanatory. I’ve included two since that’s the convention for some games, and it helps for debugging to have an option to quit the game entirely with as few button presses as possible.
And finally, here’s how it looks on a 1920x1080 display. Not the biggest, but pretty big.
