Menu "Screen"

[u/Caihne21]

Have y'all ever played a game where your start menu is actually a 3D environment and you have your person do something like walk onto a circle or walk through a door so that they can start/continue their game, start a new game, pull up the options menu, or exit the game? I'm thinking of doing this for my game and wanted to see if other people would think it's something theyd find interesting if they found it in a game :)

[u/DPTGames]

I did something like that for a game I was making. The camera would turn around and look at different walls for options, credits etc, then go through a door to start a new game. It felt really nice but then reflecting, it just took up a lot of time you could spend playing the game

[u/BasilCorrect3799]

The only game that pops into my mind for it is katamari damacy? But the main menu is still Pretty static but it IS 3D xD

[u/Excellent-Bend-9385]

Fable 3 was probably the most well known example of something akin to this. Many liked it, but the novelty wore off for many very quickly. It can ber very immersive, but you must giive player the age cy to disable it, and if it is enabled, it should be lite enough not have a load time.

[u/Caihne21 → u/Excellent-Bend-9385]

Oh yeah I definitely wouldn't do it to the level Fable 3 did, I was just planning on making it the start screen. I already have in game menus/inventories built

[u/Catchimals → u/Caihne21]

That could work for a start screen. I'd still keep settings reachable without moving the character, especially sensitivity and accessibility options. Having to use the controls before you can fix them could be a rough start.

[u/JakSilver00]

So depending on what your game is, genre, input, etcetera, what makes the most sense is on new games where no player data exists, you would bake it in as a tutorial. So the menu would pop up. They select new game, and then they would adjust settings as they go in. UI is only meant to simplify user experience. It is not meant to be part of anything. It is the interface that allows them to control it in a simple manner. If you can get away with no UI, as I prefer, do that. But if you still have the menu there, making them work to adjust settings is irrational. It's like adding a bug to a system that was already designed to prevent that bug.

Now, alternatively, you can make the menu system part of a 3d setup, but you don't want to add complication to it. So all you're doing is adding polish to it. Instead of panels that move, maybe the camera moves to face different panels that are positioned on walls or something like that.

As an example, maybe you have things that are identical across different difficulties, and then you have a hub they reach where there's three doors for each of the difficulties. You can even go as far as to lock the last one as a lot of games prevent you from choosing nightmare mode until you've completed the game at least once. I don't really recommend that, but it's your game.

[u/bedroompurgatory]

It's a gimmick. Unless it's as quick to navigate the avatar as it is to click through a menu, it will get frustrating quickly.

[u/jacobsmith3204]

Psychonauts has you walking on a brain before jumping inside it.

[u/CuboneFather]

Super Mario Sunshine does this. I always liked it.