GoedWare Game Jam ZERO UI Edition (+ prizes 🏆)

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GoedWare Game Jam ZERO UI Edition (+ prizes 🏆) community

ZERO UI Sticky

A topic by GoedWare created Jul 05, 2024 Views: 225 Replies: 10

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GoedWareHost204 days ago

🎮 ZERO UI Special Edition GoedWare Game Jam 🎮

Welcome to our unique and exciting ZERO UI Special Edition Game Jam! 💪
This event challenges you to create games without traditional user interfaces (UI).
Say goodbye to conventional buttons, menus, labels and HUDs – and say hello to innovative, immersive, and intuitive gameplay experiences!

We will try to explain what you can expect from this Game Jam & what we think ZERO UI means.
In the future we maybe adjust this post with some new insights 😅 .
(Please be aware that during the public voting, participants can have a whole different opinion about ZERO UI. There is not 1 definite definition).

Why ZERO UI?

First of all why did we organize this Special Edition. In our Game Jam #11 we had a theme option of No UI and people seemed to like it, but because we thought it would be too challenging, difficult & maybe strange to use in our regular Game Jam, we decided to make a Special Edition instead. This is it 🙂 !

Traditional user interfaces have been a staple in game design, but exploring new interaction methods can lead to ground-breaking experiences. By participating in this jam, you'll push the boundaries of conventional design, enhance accessibility, and create more immersive worlds for players to enjoy.

What could be ZERO UI?
ZERO UI focuses on creating games that rely on alternative methods of interaction and feedback than the traditional ones like labels, buttons etc.

This could include:

Dynamic & Contextual Controls: In-game objects & characters serving as interactive elements
Environmental Cues: In-game environmental changes, sound design, and visual storytelling to guide players
Environmental Interactions: Allow players to interact with the environment in natural ways
Contextual Awareness: Systems that adapt based on user behavior & environmental context
Natural User Interactions: Gesture controls, voice commands, or body movements
Haptic Feedback: Utilizing vibration or touch sensors for player feedback
Light, Color, Visual, Pattern & Sound Cues: Using these elements to convey information intuitively

Guidelines for Your Journey

Eliminate On-Screen Overlays: Avoid traditional UI elements like health & progress bars, texts, messages, and potion meters. These are typical of conventional UI's and should be replaced with more immersive & environmental cues. Also menu's & pause screens are UI you should try not use during the challenge + texts with instructions on the wall, floor and/or environment.
Use Environmental Storytelling: Convey necessary information through the game environment & character actions. For example, instead of a health bar, use visual & auditory cues to indicate low health.
Interactive Elements: Make in-game objects and characters serve as interactive elements. For example, players might learn the game controls by observing how characters or objects behave and interact naturally.
Sound and Audio Feedback: Implement sound cues & audio feedback to guide players. For instance, different sounds can indicate various game events,
Haptic Feedback: Utilize vibrations and other tactile feedback to communicate important information to the player. For example, a controller might vibrate.
Context-Aware Design: Design your game to adapt to the player's actions & context. For instance, the game might change its difficulty based on the player's performance without explicit settings.
Teaching: Teach mechanics through experimentation.
More: Probably more out of the box ideas....

Community Tips and Suggestions
If you yourself have any other tips, suggestions, remarks for Jam. Please post it in the comments & let us all discuss what is UI and ZERO UI + create fun games without these traditional UI's.

So join us in this exciting journey to redefine game interaction and push the boundaries of traditional design.
😃 💯 🎮

jmcapra193 days ago

Excited to work within this constraint! I understand on-screen text and messages should be avoided - do icon hints in the game world resembling input controls (common trope being "E" to interact with an item) fall into this realm?

GoedWareHost193 days ago

Yes, that is UI too and needs to be avoided 😁😅

waldorfhammerSubmitted184 days ago (1 edit)

this may be more of a philosophical perspective, but I'm not sure how audio cues or haptic feedback do not qualify as UI but text does. all are simply methods of communicating with the player. since the above detailed guidelines were not included on the main game page and not everyone reads forum comments to fully understand the goal of the jam, I think a lot of us were confused about the theme, especially because we all have different understandings of the term UI. I see it as simply "the way the game communicates with the user". audio cues and other non-graphical cues are definitely UI elements if my definition is used. it may have been helpful to specify (on the main page) that only diagetic cues (elements that the character encounters, rather than elements presented to the player) were to be user or, more simply, that GUI was not to be used, which would allow for the audio cues that you mentioned. I don't mean to complain about the theme - in fact, it encourages a really interesting mental exploration / verbal conversation about the essence of what a user interface IS. thank you for instigating that conversation. I just wish the details of your guidelines had been posted within the body of the main jam page. the only stipulation on there was "creating games without the traditional user interface elements"; that's pretty vague (traditional UI elements will mean something different to each of us), whereas the explanation for the light/dark theme was very thorough. it never occurred to me that i needed more information from a forum post in order to comply with the hosts' vision of zero UI.

waldorfhammerSubmitted184 days ago (1 edit)

P.S. I think the word ZERO is the main issue. it's interesting to attempt to use zero UI, but in reality, not many games other than the ones that rely on pure experimentation can meet that standard. maybe a 'NO TRADITIONAL UI elements' theme would have been an equally interesting and challenging constraint - without leaving us all in the dark (so to speak 🕯). we might have still been unsure about the term 'traditional', but it wouldn't have seemed like a virtually impossible challenge.

GoedWareHost184 days ago

We have discussed on discord that maybe another constraint...only use Diegetic UI could be a better one for another Special Edition

GoedWareHost184 days ago

Good tip/feedback to add it to the front page indeed!! Was our first special edition so we have to learn along the way also how to make it a smoother experience for the participants. And also with this special mechanic it was for us finding out how to manage it. We thought the forum is well read and it was also on Discord but not everyone joins there of course. We will do that better next time!

Indeed ZERO UI can be different for a lot of people. Some find audio cues also UI and some not and some think diegetic UI is ok and others not. There is not a definite definition. Not even the post in the forum is for everyone the definition of zero ui. So the discussion would be stil there and that is not a bad thing.

I am glad it sparked discussion and you liked that. And please discuss it also further with the other participants here or on Discord about what is UI and what we think UI is.

Creating games without any UI is also not normally what any game will do, but that is why we thought it would be a nice challenge to see how we can guide a player through a game without UI.

Hope you still enjoyed the jam and even with a bit of UI and great scores in the other categories you can still get a good rank also. I do not think there will be perfect ZERO UI games at all. You will have good ones that did go far or some that did a bit of UI and some that just did a lot of UI and just want to make fun game for the theme.

waldorfhammerSubmitted184 days ago

thank you so much for the thoughtful reply! and yes, I still really enjoyed participating in this jam; in fact, it was one of the best experiences I've had here on itch.io! next time i will definitely try to get more involved in the community discussions here - and on discord. i've always had a tendency to make games in isolation, but I think it would be far more rewarding to give and accept feedback, encouragement and collaboration from other developers.

GoedWareHost184 days ago

We had this for the category description:

ZERO UI: How effectively the game conveys information and mechanics without the traditional user interface elements.

It is still open en vague, but that is also why we have 7 days of discussion on Discord about what is UI :-).

At the end you are still right we also could have added the whole forum post to the front page. We noted it down for our next special edition. Will it be the same ZERO UI or another constraint/challenge.

waldorfhammerSubmitted184 days ago

Side Note: because it seemed so daunting to try creating a game with ZERO UI (given my understanding of the term UI), I basically gave up on the constraint (as I saw it) and included UI elements such as menus and on-screen instructions. My thinking was this: if I can't do zero UI, I might as well try to make a game without unnecessary, overly expository or graphically imposing UI. Despite that, I don't expect to score highly on the 'zero UI' rating. 🤷

GoedWareHost184 days ago

That is also a way to handle the theme. Maybe not 5 stars but you can still get a score for not using unnecessary, overly expository or graphically imposing UI