Development Info Dead State Design Update: Inventory/Looting GUI

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Dead State; DoubleBear Productions

In this week's design update, Brian Mitsoda and the DoubleBear team reveal a picture of the inventory/looting GUI for their post-zombie apocalypsis RPG Dead State, soon coming to a Kickstarter near you:

As we grow ever closer to launching our Kickstarter, here’s a work-in-progress look at our looting GUI to keep you excited about the forthcoming videos.

We’ve got a pretty simple layout for our inventory. The player’s inventory is on the left side, where the container or body is on the right side. The tabs at the top are toggles to quickly find items by category. You can sort through your entire inventory by advancing each page. Most supply items, thrown items, and ammo will stack. Selecting an item will show a description of the item in the 3x5 at the bottom of the screen.

Your carry weight is determined by your strength. On the whole, when you factor in the weight of your armor and weapons, your own inventory space may not be many pages long, especially if your character isn’t strong and likes to wear heavy armor and carry shields. Allies can hold excess inventory, which can be done in a trade interface outside of combat.

Additionally, we would like to tweak this inventory screen to be used for a barter interface, when we have the time. Essentially, NPCs that want a certain item will weigh that class of items higher than of an item they do not want or have too much of. Bartering isn’t common in Dead State, though you may find a few folks who will trade surplus supplies.

Also, you may notice we have toned down the colors in the GUI based on the forum feedback. The inventory screen is no different – let us know what you think.​

To see the looting GUI in a higher resolution, visit the official design update thread at DoubleBear's forum.

 

[Nattvardsvin]

Is there going to be bitching about the GUI again?
It looks fine to me.

 

[RedScum]

Im fine with the design and the new color scheme looks a lot better then the previous one. Waiting patiently for the kickstarter!

 

[pipka]

Not grid-based... Decline!

 

[Surf Solar]

Looking good! For my tastes not grimdark and gritty enough but I can live with it. :p A minor complaint - those filter buttons on top of container/player inventory could be slightly bigger, IMO. Atleast from the screenshot it looks like very prone to accidently misclick one of them, heh.

The white note paper on the bottom will be used for further item description I assume?

 

[Alex_Steel]

The colours are better, indeed. Although I don't like zombie movies etc, I have a strange but good feeling about this game. Son, don't disappointed me.

 

[Untermensch]

I don't like it.

Why not make the inventory even bigger? There is a lot of unused space on the screen.
Why do we need to flip pages when all of it could be on one screen?
I do like good artwork, but inventory shold strive to be more practical, rather than good-looking.

It's the same problem like Age of Decadence.
Why only one column? Why the fuck in this day and age do we need to scroll? Or flip pages? Or .....
Resolution today is big enough to display tons of stuff.

 

[Pelvis Knot]

I don't like it.

Why not make the inventory even bigger? There is a lot of unused space on the screen.
Why do we need to flip pages when all of it could be on one screen?
I do like good artwork, but inventory shold strive to be more practical, rather than good-looking.

I believe that was discussed and explained in the last thread - Dead State GUI doesn't scale to your level resolution

 

[Ethan Duvall]

I don't like it.

Why not make the inventory even bigger? There is a lot of unused space on the screen.
Why do we need to flip pages when all of it could be on one screen?
I do like good artwork, but inventory shold strive to be more practical, rather than good-looking.

It's the same problem like Age of Decadence.
Why only one column? Why the fuck in this day and age do we need to scroll? Or flip pages? Or .....
Resolution today is big enough to display tons of stuff.

Shut the fuck up and go back to poping moles in Diablo 3

 

[Untermensch]

I don't like it.

Why not make the inventory even bigger? There is a lot of unused space on the screen.
Why do we need to flip pages when all of it could be on one screen?
I do like good artwork, but inventory shold strive to be more practical, rather than good-looking.

It's the same problem like Age of Decadence.
Why only one column? Why the fuck in this day and age do we need to scroll? Or flip pages? Or .....
Resolution today is big enough to display tons of stuff.

Shut the fuck up and go back to poping moles in Diablo 3

Hmm.....
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/is-diablo-3-an-rpg.72215/

Shitposting newfag detected

 

[Kosmonaut]

This actually looks good. Maybe some people won't like this style, but at least is done properly and indeed better than the previous one.

The toned down colors and the subtle gradient in the paper gives it a nice three dimensional vibe. Now make every other GUI element like this.

 

[OSK]

That 9mm handgun is 10 lbs!? Holy shit, that is ridiculously heavy. Most shotguns and rifles don't even weigh that much.

 

[UnknownBro]

Nice photoshop.

 

[FrancoTAU]

I like the look of it, I'm just wondering how practical it is for a survival RPG type of game. You'd figure a big part of the game is running around looking for supplies. It'd be annoying having to flip back and forth through pages of inventory.

OldSkoolKamikaze
I hope it's just a quick mock up. Otherwise a knife, pistol, 1 magazine and a first aid kit is a collective 40 pounds out of a 70 max.

 

[Excommunicator]

Reduced colour saturation is a vast improvement, but I am still uneasy about the whole sterile school theme.

By going that route there is one area you are really damaging: overall atmosphere. By not having it evoke anything to do with the atmosphere of zombies or post-apoc survival, you are going to have to try really hard elsewhere to make that atmosphere come through in the game, and reviewers will call you out on it as well. I would suggest dirtying it up with things like children's creepy crayon drawings of zombies and dead people, and hastily written evacuation procedures by the teachers who left in a hurry, spilled drink cans, cola stains, cigarette burn marks, even rubbish that has been left uncollected by the absent groundsman.

As it is now, it makes me feel like I should be quiet because there is a class in the next room currently sitting an important maths test.

Also, I agree that scrolling inventories are horrible ideas. They make it look "clean" and "tidy" and "professional" but they have no positives beyond that first impression. Think hard about the audience you are aiming for here, and don't pretend there won't be complaints about its practical usage.

 

[kazgar]

Hmm, If I was setting up a base to save myself from a zombie horde, I reckon I'd clean it up pretty quickly, last thing you need to do if you need to hustle is slip on a can of cola and fall over and be eaten by a zombie. Also if the outside is going to hell in a handbasket, A environment that doesn't reinforce that would be beneficial to morale.

What's to say that there was a normal school day, and then they closed up for lets say the weekend, and the apocalypse (or even the threat of one, leading to a orderly evacuation) happened on a weekend, if you found the school a couple of hours/days/weeks later it could be pretty much untouched and waiting for the Monday morning rush that never came. I think Eerie silence and a sterility would probably be what'd you'd find.

Of course its just a scenario, and I don't know dead state's story, but overturned burning cars and mounds of fly strewn rubbish don't have to be the only way a zombie outbreak needs to be portrayed.

 

[quasimodo]

That 9mm handgun is 10 lbs!? Holy shit, that is ridiculously heavy. Most shotguns and rifles don't even weigh that much.

Brian says the weights numbers are just placeholders.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Is there going to be bitching about the GUI again?

I still hate it. Just aesthetically...it looks like board games I played in elementary school.

 

[Radisshu]

I like it. It's nicely put together, aesthetically pleasing, and gives this kind of everyday feel which feels like it would give a nice contrast to the horror of the characters' situation - instead of being forcefully gritty with blood splatters and shit all over.

 

[FrancoTAU]

Regarding the visual criticisms, I think it really depends on what they're stressing in this game. Is it just a survival simulator with zombies thrown in or is it a horror RPG with some gimmicks? If they're going for a horror game than I agree that they need to dirty up the GUI and atmosphere in general.

 

[ghostdog]

It's a good UI...


...if it was going to be used in Office Space - The game.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So, I'm in the middle of the road looting some body and suddenly a desk covered in stationery pops in my face?

Too specific! Go for something more abstract. Seriously, it's dumb.

And I see the black&white people are attacking again. Sure, not everything has to be blood and dirt* so let's instead have something completely opposite and out of place. It's much better.

*if the theme calls for it, then it kinda has to be. Learn something about consistency.

 

[Marquess Cornwallis]

I agree just use more of the screen space and ditch the artsy stuff. Especially since it's being used up by the school theme that no one seems to like and doesn't make a lot of sense. Also, make it drag and drop.

Drag and drop would definitely be nice, the screen space allocation I think has already been explained as having to do with widescreen vs 4:3 aspect ratio (the decorative pieces on the sides are not there in 4:3).

Anyway, about the school theme: I like it. It may not seem quite as obvious a fit as the 1950s retro-futurism was to nuclear apocalypse (although, having worked as a teaching fellow, I can think of more than one way school and zombies go together), but it does make the game stand out from the dozens of takes on the zombie survival genre that have emerged lately. It would also seem Brian has worked on integrating and interconnecting the two themes on various levels and built the game around them both from the start. This means the school theme isn't going anywhere and makes it rather difficult to judge what kind of ambiance it creates without having the context of the full game. It does look somewhat camp here, but maybe that's what they're going for (cf. the ridiculously over-the-top goth style of Bloodlines).

(Also, on a slightly unrelated note, sign me up for that Kickstarter of your game. I'm honestly interested.)

 

[Excommunicator]

Hmm, If I was setting up a base to save myself from a zombie horde, I reckon I'd clean it up pretty quickly, last thing you need to do if you need to hustle is slip on a can of cola and fall over and be eaten by a zombie. Also if the outside is going to hell in a handbasket, A environment that doesn't reinforce that would be beneficial to morale.

What's to say that there was a normal school day, and then they closed up for lets say the weekend, and the apocalypse (or even the threat of one, leading to a orderly evacuation) happened on a weekend, if you found the school a couple of hours/days/weeks later it could be pretty much untouched and waiting for the Monday morning rush that never came. I think Eerie silence and a sterility would probably be what'd you'd find.

Of course its just a scenario, and I don't know dead state's story, but overturned burning cars and mounds of fly strewn rubbish don't have to be the only way a zombie outbreak needs to be portrayed.

They're all fair points, but you miss the point that actually matters and that is the fact that this is not real life.

Hopefully you don't ever create a game or piece of art as it sounds like you have no design instinct whatsoever.

 

[kazgar]

Maybe you've got the idea of the game mixed up with one of the other zombie games, there's a good chance the games pretty much "camp leader - zombie edition"

Dead State is a compelling, high-tension RPG set at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse - a deadly illness is rampaging through the world, turning those infected into the walking dead. As society is beginning to fall apart, the player must organize a scant handful of allies, working on fortifying a shelter, scouting for food and supplies, making uncertain alliances with others, and attempting to hold together a group as humanity teeters on the brink of extinction. And although the zombies lurk as an ever present threat, the biggest obstacle to the player may just be other humans with the same goal: survival at any cost.

So surely my 'real life' example is close to the mark then your post-apoc/zombie cliche version?

Its the start of the incident, so there's a good chance there wouldn't be the history of deaths and general ruination of society that you're saying is required.