I have designed animations for a few interfaces in order to add a touch more drama, polish, and, hopefully, clarity.

The list of changes shown in the REVO Change Log might seem simple and few this week, but they did require some effort and are meant to have a big impact, especially on first time players.

Animated Menus

You will now see a few screens animate in interesting ways as they appear or disappear. These animations are completely new and the menu logic I had in place didn’t support animations like these until this week.

My programming experience was tested on this one because it required a little system redesign surgery where I patiently changed as little as possible and worked hard to avoid breaking anything. Fortunately, this went well, but it took a few days.

So far this new layer of polish is demonstrated by the Title screen, the Dashboard menu, and the Ship Preview HUD, which are all viewed frequently by all players no matter what their play style. These examples are a little rough around the edges, but I will refine them gradually and more interface animations will be introduced eventually.

Opening Sequence

There is both a cinematic and user experience motivation behind these new animated moments even when it’s just a menu or a simple HUD. The gradual interface reveals are intended to introduce new players to a potentially complicated set of information plus add a little bit of storytelling interest.

When the player first sees an unknown ship pick up a mysterious object in space, there is no interface to either distract nor inform. This is a simple, visual story moment. As the ship then moves into position to ready for gameplay, a HUD slowly builds to reveal that same mysterious object and a combat system wrapped around it.

Once the dramatic reveal has completed, the Combat HUD and Dashboard menu appear and everything comes online for battle. That’s when the player can finally take control to examine systems and then enter the first combat scenario. The gradual sequence is meant to introduce one element at a time and to help players notice the most critical details.

Does it work for you?

Check out these new animations for yourself first-hand. Sign up to download a free early test version of the game. You can also offer feedback which helps make future updates even better.