Designing the UI

A very important step in game development is to design the UI. This doesn't mean to just create the graphics, but to decide where and how it will appear on the game screen. For instance, take a look at the following design:

As you can see, the design could be great for some games, but it doesn't fit in our game. Because of the map, we should definitely avoid placing some of the components along the path that our enemies will follow.

A much better design is the following:

We will actually implement this one, but feel free to design your UI according to your own game. As you can see, the UI components do not overlap with the path.

Tip

There are some other elements that should be taken into account. For instance, a menu can appear and disappear, like a pop-up menu. This is something that is done to improve the design of our UI. However, these go beyond the scope of this chapter. Therefore, the topics can be referred to in more specific books, such as the one mentioned at the...