Android 03. In-Game UI and HUD

After the main menu UI, the next step is to create the in-game UI, such as the HUD and the game over, completed level, and pause menu. In-game UI is really important because that is what gives feedback to the player on what is happening on the screen and makes sure, the player knows what to interact with.

Game HUD at the beginning of the game

The HUD elements:

- Score and score multiplier: The upper-left corner shows the player's current score and next to it is the score multiplier (X1), the score multiplier increases if the player moves more to the right side of the playable area (the first third is 1X, the second third is 1.5X and the last third is given 2X more points), but with that, the difficulty increases, because gives less reaction time to the player.

- Lives: Under the score that Doritos-looking thing (placeholder) shows the amount of life left before the game ends. Currently, the maximum amount of lives is 3 and every hit from the enemy or obstacles removes one.

- Joystick: The lower-left corner is where the joystick is placed, so the player is able to move the ship around the screen because the shooting is done automatically, that is the only tool that the player needs to play the game.

- Pause button: The upper-right corner where the pause button is placed if the player stops the gameplay and takes a break or restarts the level.

Pause menu (not finished version)

When the Player press the pause button, this menu gives the option to either continue the game, restart the level or head back to the main menu.

Game Over menu (not finished version)

If the player lost all his life, this menu pops up on the screen, showing the game is over and offers the choice between restarting the level or heading back to the main menu.

End of the level statistic menu (not finished version)

After the level is completed, the statistic menu shows all the data that the player should know about how the scoring works.

- Stars: At the moment it's a placeholder and shows the maximum amount of score the player could reach, but later it will function as a star rating system.

- Total score: The amount of score the player earned during this level.

- Time score: The player earns scores every X seconds and it is shown here (the score changes based on which multiplayer zone the player is in).

- Enemy killed: Shows the number of enemies eliminated on this particular level.

- Lives multiplier: The end score is multiplied by the number of lives left at the end of the level.

- Multiplier Time: The amount of time the player spent on the multiplier zones.

And finishing this part of the game we finally arrived at the point, when the game is ready for testing! The game is already on the store, but currently waiting for verification, after that, we are able to receive feedback and get back to work on the game further.

Thank you for reading!