The first Game

Many many years ago I was a 6th grader. My parents had graciously purchased a PC so that I could write word documents for school projects.

One day I went to the mall and browsed a computer game store. I saw the title "Star Control 2". I read the back of the box and thought, "Hmm, its got strategy. Its got fighting. You have your own fleet of spaceships. You can save the human race from their evil oppressors the Ur-Quans. Who wouldn't want this game!"

I purchased the game and went home. I loaded it up on the computer and sat back. I clicked on the shortcut and Vwala...I was hooked! The opening scene was incredible. There is a community nowadays that has ported the game to current operating systems. So anyone can, for free, experience this game on any computer (Mac or PC). No Joke, this was back in 1992 and to this day I still play this game! You can visit http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ to check it out or download it for free. Be sure to read the manual though, all the hints for the game are given too in pdf files. Ok, on to the analysis of its interface.

STAR CONTROL 2

This is a game that is essentially a sci-fi novel that you experience by interacting with aliens and piecing together information about great war (which humanity and the Alliance ultimately lost). Eventually, you lift humanity from slavery and free all the other races in the galaxy.

The Star Control 2 interface is amazingly simple. During the main game screen players use the space bar, arrow keys. During planetary missions, the x key fires the stunner and space bar lifts the craft off of the world. During conversations with aliens players use the arrow keys to select which line of text (highlighted in white) they want to use in conversations and space bar displays what the alien just said. Its brilliant.

There are five main areas of the game: Conversing with aliens, gathering minerals on planets to build ships, navigating through space, engaging in ship to ship combat. The interface and information displays are incredible, streamlined such that there is no wasted space or awkwardness, yet at the same time it doesn't look or feel cluttered.

Conversing with aliens:

Just about every game I have ever played since SC2 that incorporated some sort of dialog between characters has used this format-> Picture on top and dialog selections at the bottom

Its efficient because if the text were displayed at the sides the picture would be squeezed vertically, and the sentences might wrap around in the dialog box, which could make them harder to read! I doubt another more efficient way will crop up anytime soon. Besides, by now its such a familiar way to conduct the conversation that there is a lot of inertia behind that style.

lunch time brb...