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Huzzah. Just wondering, where do you go for inspiration to create cool menus, interfaces and whatnot?
The coding of my game is going fine, so I decided to take a brake and design the main menu. I really want a cool menu but I'm having a hard time building one, and I'm going the minimalist approach (just text, no graphics).
Also, what kind of fonts do look good on games? At this point, I'm stuck with the basic Verdana, Lucinda Grande and Arial fonts.
I designed some pixel fonts for my Pariboro game with fontstruct (very fun place to make your own fonts without any special tools or much knowledge):
http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/fonts.../tonypa/public
The idea was that as long you use them on 8 + n * 4 px sizes (8, 12, 16, 20 etc) they will always remain crisp and clean but unlike most pixel fonts they do not become "pixelated" at larger sizes (everything is made up from horisontal and vertical lines).
I plan to leave my menus until the end and then use assets from the game for them. In the case of my current game I am working on a radial menu system as my only interface (nothing on screen except game pieces if the mouse is not over something). I am hoping to use that radial system as my game menu as well.
1) I have no art talent, and my wife does my art, so re-using is the order of the day.
2) It portrays the 'feel' of the game right away.
That is the plan, the reality is I never finish anything and I am still working on my horrible polling engine and game lobbies and such right now.
As far as cool fonts, that is totally dependant on what type of game you are doing. A scifi game and a fantasy game will look very different, font wise. That said, try to find a font with just a TOUCH of the style you want, but focus on readability in all fonts. If you want a crazy looking font, best use it just for the logo. I hate games that force me to read text in awful fonts. Like that god-awful all caps diablo font that was so popular years ago.