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I basically spent this entire weekend playing "Into the Breach" so I feel qualified to comment on that game being identified as "visually well-designed". Here'

I basically spent this entire weekend playing "Into the Breach" so I feel qualified to comment on that game being identified as "visually well-designed". Here's one great thing about ItB that was not discussed in the article (probably for brevity!). When you're deciding what moves to take, the game will show you the effect of the move you're about to do. This is really handy because often your moves have knockback, or splash, etc so it's challenging to figure out on your own what exactly your move is going to do. The not so great thing about ItB, visually, is that after a certain point in the game the grid just becomes too cluttered. This is because every enemy in the lategame has effects, splash, special moves, etc. It becomes difficult to parse visually. If the article had dissected a screenshot from the late game, they probably would not have come to the same conclusions as they did.

pvg 8y ago
Do you have such a screenshot? I've played it a bunch and it never got unclear but maybe I just got used to what all the doodads mean. For what it's worth, I don't think the 'three reads' thing is particularly informative or useful way to highlight what that make the ItB design good.
kirkules 8y ago
Would this be resolved for you if there were an option (hotkey or mouseover, like checking order of actions in a turn) that dimmed all other things and highlighted either 1) all enemy planned actions, 2) all environmental modifications like fire/smoke/floods/etc., or 3) all unit locations, friendly in green and enemy in red? Otherwise I think there's a bit of growing visual complexity inherent in the growing actual complexity of the grid, and reducing it in some other way might hide from you information crucial to your next tactical decision. I think the game's supposed to be pretty moddable, so I imagine this kind of thing might even appear as a mod at some point, if you don't want to do it for yourself.
siralonso 8y ago
The "telegraphing" of moves in ITB is really great. The devs worked on FTL previously (also a great game if you haven't played it!), and one of the really nice interface choices they made is to make the effect/requirements/stats/etc of every item/weapon/crewmember visible when you hover your mouse. You can tell that they care about giving the player all of the information they need to make a decision. You might like this article on RockPaperShotgun that does a bit more of a deep dive on the interface design challenges during ITB: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/05/into-the-breach-interface-design/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/05/into-the-breach-...

pvg 8y ago

Do you have such a screenshot? I've played it a bunch and it never got unclear but maybe I just got used to what all the doodads mean. For what it's worth, I don't think the 'three reads' thing is particularly informative or useful way to highlight what that make the ItB design good.

kirkules 8y ago

Would this be resolved for you if there were an option (hotkey or mouseover, like checking order of actions in a turn) that dimmed all other things and highlighted either 1) all enemy planned actions, 2) all environmental modifications like fire/smoke/floods/etc., or 3) all unit locations, friendly in green and enemy in red? Otherwise I think there's a bit of growing visual complexity inherent in the growing actual complexity of the grid, and reducing it in some other way might hide from you information crucial to your next tactical decision. I think the game's supposed to be pretty moddable, so I imagine this kind of thing might even appear as a mod at some point, if you don't want to do it for yourself.

siralonso 8y ago

The "telegraphing" of moves in ITB is really great. The devs worked on FTL previously (also a great game if you haven't played it!), and one of the really nice interface choices they made is to make the effect/requirements/stats/etc of every item/weapon/crewmember visible when you hover your mouse. You can tell that they care about giving the player all of the information they need to make a decision. You might like this article on RockPaperShotgun that does a bit more of a deep dive on the interface design challenges during ITB: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/05/into-the-breach-interface-design/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/05/into-the-breach-...