Sam Hill VisCom

For this post mortem I will be going over why I decided to redesign Left 4 Dead 2′s main menu screen as well as the challenges I found. First off, when deciding what to do for the final project I quickly looked to redesign something. Since I am not confident in my artistic ability, I wanted to choose a way to limit how much art I had to create myself in order to create something that looked visually pleasing. The redesign also allowed me to choose a subject that I relate with the most, which lead me to choosing Left 4 Dead 2′s main menu. As explained in my audit, there were some key features of the menu that I thought could be reformatted to make a simple, more appealing experience.

My passion and experience with Left 4 Dead 2 made the initial redesign fairly easy to create. I simply made the changes that I as a player wish were there. Being a redesign and not a remix, I wanted to keep as close to the original as possible, so I focused on amplifying the good parts of the menu. Changing what was necessary to create a more efficient and frankly more polished menu came naturally from my gripes over the years. However, executing that design in Photoshop was my main challenge.

Left 4 Dead 2 Menu Redesign

Added Logo

Added Bio-hazard Symbol

Added Hovered Over Effect on “Add-Ons”

Resized Server Browser Scroll Bar

Left 4 Dead 2 Menu Redesign Draft 2

The most helpful section of this was the portion about brainstorming. While the closest thing to one of the methods described in this reading that I’ve recently done would be visual dumping, I most commonly use brainstorming when beginning a project. I often start off with a question similar to “what makes games fun” and then begin combining ideas. 

Final Project Audit - Redesign

For my final project I will be redesigning Left 4 Dead 2′s main menu. To be honest, this main menu is perfectly fine as it functions well and is pretty straight forward; however I have always thought of it as odd. 

The menu mainly consists of the horizontal game mode scroll bar, the server tab, and a button list which includes options and etc. This all serve their purposes well, but its organization is peculiar. I think overall this menu could use more proficient space management.

One possible change I would make is first: formatting the game mode scroll bar to show all game modes at once. Currently there is one game mode that cannot appear on screen with the others, this can easily be remedied by condensing “Play Campaign” with “Realism” and “Versus” with “Realism VS”. These two pairs are the same game mode, but realism is version where there is no UI and players can only respawn by the use of a defibrillator. I intend on making those accessible under the same button.

Another change would be to enlarge and reposition the server tab. Currently it is sort of just dangling in the empty space close to the bottom right. Enlarging it to display more servers at once and be intractable without going to another menu would be more space and time efficient.

The last main change I would make would be possibly taking all the buttons on the button list making it horizontal across the bottom of the screen rather than vertical in the middle. This would complement the main game mode scroll bar as well as open up more space for the server tab. This may be especially useful because I am also considering repositioning everything slightly downwards in order to fully uncover the “Left 4 Dead 2″ title.

The most interesting thing I learned about from this reading was the use of pictograms. So it doesn’t need to be said that language changes and evolves with time, but I found it quite interesting how signs and pictograms evolve as well. It was nice to learn some of the history behind the most well known signs that we see almost everyday, however I was not aware of the changes these same signs have gone through. While I did understand their purpose, it was strange to see different variations of the same symbols.

I was very uncertain what I would do this interface project on at first. There weren’t any sort of interfaces that I could relate to myself or be inspired to create, but I figured I could make a title screen for my game “Dashformer” that I’m currently creating. However, even after I made this decision I was uncomfortable with while making my first and second draft. “Dashformer” is an abstract platformer that consists of few elements, so my title screen should reflect that as well. The purpose of this title screen is to give the player a sense of the game they are about to play while being extremely easy to navigate, so it was appropriate that the title screen was also made up of the few shapes that are in the actual gameplay. To exemplify the gameplay even more I wanted to make the title screen playable with the player avatar serving as the play button as well, but this can’t be seen with the extent of this project.

Good Example - BattleBlock Theater Title Screen Menu

While the in-game menu has way more things going on than actually necessary, this menu exactly portrays the game that you’re about to play. All the animations from the buttons to the gameplay footage in the background create the humorous atmosphere that you can expect from the entire game from then on.

The main element I would like to take from this would be its interactivity of its buttons and its mood building in general. (I may also try to replicate the gameplay background with either making the menu screen actually playable or adding gameplay as well)

Bad Example - Super Meat Boy Title Screen Menu

(Low quality pic aside) Super Meat Boy’s title menu screen doesn’t portray what the actual gameplay is at all. While the logo and art are giving an example of what it might look like, until you actually start the game the gameplay can almost be anything. If it wasn’t for the great soundtrack that Super Meat Boy has, this menu would be severely devoid of the atmosphere creation that BattleBlock Theater does so well.

Interface - Title Screen for my game Dashformer

1. The goal of this title screen will be to create a unique and interactive experience as soon as the game opens. I want to give the player a general feel of what the game is before they are even able to play it. This screen will consist of a “scene” of Dashformer in which the buttons are the player square, a spike triangle, a platform, and of course the title.

2. The interactions will revolve around the three buttons: play button (the blue player square), an instruction screen button (a grey platform), and a quit button (a red spike). These buttons will be selectable by scrolling through with the arrow keys and then pressing Enter. When hovering over a button it will glow and have a highlighted color as well as a sound effect and animation when selected.