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Iconography vs Quick Reference vs Text

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Dravvin
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Joined: 03/29/2016
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Hi All,

I'm currently designing the tiles for my game The mAIden Voyage and am trying to 'finalising' the tile/space design before I print and laminate them all for lots of play testing.

I was wondering what preference you all have in terms of where information is.

Each tile will have the following information on it:
1. Room name
2. Number of damage allowed
3. Number of Scientists allowed
4. Unique space/tile action
5. Special effect (only on some tiles)

I am planning on keeping 1-3 on the tiles but I'm in a quandary about 4 and 5.

Do you prefer:

1. All information associated with the tile/space on the tile in text form (e.g. Battlestar Galactica).
2. All information associated with the tile/space on the tile, but mostly in iconography (e.g. Roll for the Galaxy).
3. A fusion of iconography and text to minimise the amount of text on each tile.
4. Just a distinctive picture with key information and 4/5 on a player reference card in front of each player (e.g. Room 25).
5. Something else that I haven't though of!

I'm assuming for options 1 and 2 there would still be some kind of player reference sheet so that it's easy to see what the options are even if a player can't see the opposite end of the board.

I've added an example for one of the location tiles with iconography and plain text. Art for these tiles has not yet been finalised (dreamt up!) so excuse the rather plain back image!

I am also open to suggestions for better iconography that I'm currently using!

TIA

Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
Icons, if ...

I prefer icons if there are a relatively small number of things that are getting iconized. 5 actions and 7 objects is about the maximum. Icons don't need to be perfectly self-explanatory; what's important is that once one has read the icon description once, the icon is enough to bring it to mind immediately.

In your examples, the medical one seems pretty straightforward. However, the discard, peek, etc. one needs a little more. There is nothing that reminds me that the card icon means "discard;" perhaps if it included a down arrow or a trash can on it's bottom right corner, that would do it.

Also, the peek and then replace on top or bottom is two steps, so it needs two icons (or icon groups). If this had just the eye followed by the deck image, then after this the over/under icon, I think that this works. Or, better still, the eye followed by the deck image, but where it shows that it's a deck (because it has sides) and the top card is curling off; then the over/under icon followed by the same deck image without the top card curling off.

Dravvin
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Joined: 03/29/2016
Thanks Zag :) Some good ideas

Thanks Zag :)

Some good ideas :)

I don't think the number of icons should be that huge so i think it should be possible to do.

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