Tag: GUI Design

  • Windows 8 Consumer Preview Usability Review

    While trying out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview I noticed a number of usability problems and interface designs that could be done better. This review outlines problems and solutions/recommendations relating to the sidebars, start screen, and power actions in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. But first, a little about me… About Me I’m an interface designer…

  • IGDA Ottawa: Indies in the Classroom Talk

    At a recent Independent Game Developers Association meeting I was asked to talk about my experiences taking Hideout!, a project originally developed as schoolwork, to the Xbox 360 for public sale. The slides and a video of the presentation are below. As always, please pass on any feedback; it’s always much appreciated! The presentation began…

  • Changing the Windows Mouse Cursor in XNA

    Background For anyone who is looking to develop a mouse-based game for Windows using the XNA framework, it’s pretty critical to be able to change your mouse cursor in game. The first method is to hide the mouse cursor and draw a custom texture in place of it – but anyone who is developing a…

  • Hideout! Post-mortem / Retrospective

    It’s been a few moths since the Xbox 360 release of Hideout! on the Indie Games channel of Xbox Live. The sales were very low, but I was expecting that from this type of game. Regardless, with over 1200 trial downloads and only 45 sales, it would be good to look at why this game…

  • 720p Title Safe GUI Template

    I am currently in the process of porting Hideout! to the Xbox 360 with XNA. As a part of this process, I needed to create a Photoshop GUI template for my GUI artist to ensure that our game would work well on all TVs. I thought this template may be useful to other developers as…