Practical Game Design

Maintaining visual clarity

If players cannot easily distinguish, read, and understand the state of the game and contents of the screen, they won't be able to interact with the game effectively. Consider the following tips to improve the visual clarity in your games:

• Hide or de-prioritize any unnecessary information in the user interface.
• Separate the enemies and interactive objects from the background. Be it via shapes, outlines, color palettes, or materials and shaders.
• Use clear and uniform visual language in your level design. For example, in Tomb Raider, any climbable wall is covered in white paint.
• Do not obscure critical information (player position, threats) with overwhelming and long-lasting visual effects.
• Visualize the state of ...