Colors in the Offworld UI

I think the user interface in Offworld needs to make much better use of colors to help players interpret the massive amount of information presented to them more quickly and easily. Here are five specific suggestions for making better use of colors in the UI.

 

1) Stock prices should turn GREEN when rising, and RED when falling. (This is the most important change. Right now, you have to stare at the stock prices for a few seconds to figure out whether the numbers are going up or down. This is a gameplay problem because speed is so important in the lategame).

2) Resource colors (and shapes) should be distinct and consistent throughout the game -- in the UI, on the buildings that generate the resource, and on icons in the world map. (This is a significant obstacle in the learning curve for new players.)

3) Resource prices should turn GREEN when rising and RED when falling. (Intensity of the color might vary depending on the rate of change.)

4) Debt should turn RED when rising (ie. the player is operating at a deficit and losing money) and GREEN when falling (ie. the player is making money).

5) Funds should turn GREEN when rising, RED when falling. (I'm not sure if both this and the debt number should have red/green).

 

An optional Colorblind Mode should change RED/GREEN to something accessible.

 

Thanks for the great work on the game so far. I'm a new player, so please forgive me if these suggestions have already been discussed.

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Reply #1 Top

Entirely agree about the Colorblind Mode - had a friend buy the game to play with me the other week and she had to put it down after a few moments because things simply weren't distinct enough for her to be able to tell what was going on.

I like having to analyse the prices to figure out if they're currently trending up or down, and keeping track of how long they've been doing either. Simplifying this would have a large impact on the skill required to play - figuring out what the market is doing/about to do for the resources you have/are interested in is key to victory and I'm against reducing that - or worse, encouraging new players to think in simple terms of 'green good' 'red bad' when it's much more layered than that.

Juzzo!