Visual feedback is an important part of player interaction. This might seem obvious but sometimes it's hard for us (as developers) to know what information the player needs because we're so used to knowing the game inside and out. The obvious solution is to playtest, but taking that information and implementing a graceful solution takes some more consideration.
An easy way of going about it is to clutter the screen with UI. In our case, it would be stamina/hunger parameters for our NPCs but that brings a level of coldness to the whole game. The player would rely more on numbers and less on interacting with the NPCs which is one of our main goals. Instead, there are more subtle ways to approach this, like giving the NPCs different walk cycles based on needs. Then as the population grows, the player will still be able to differentiate who has a problem without having to interact with every NPC. Colour can also be utilized by giving a duller palette to those who have low comfort but then there needs to be more consideration towards colour blind players.
Similar we needed a way to differentiate the different roles that the player can assign NPCs.
One of the things we added were tool props for NPCs. The first being a quiver for hunters and a hammer tool belt for builders. Initially, it was positioned by the hip so players would be able to spot it from different angles. After some testing we found that players didn't really register that difference, especially when playing while zoomed out. The hip quiver was also too similar to the tool belt. To improve on this, we plan to move the quiver to the back and consider "role" icons next to the villager's names.
This brings us to the minimap. Currently, it is very simple and the only practicality it has is helping the player find their way back the their village.
To give more functionality to it, we plan to add icons to help the player locate the NPCs. Those that are not in the player's vicinity will be on the edge of the minimap so the player will at least know their general direction. Those that are not part of the village will be grayed out to signal that they have not joined yet.
Additionally, there are also plans to have icons for villager event notifications. Previously, events would happen at random and there was no tell to signal it unless the player was at the right place at the right time. The event notification will help the player know when a potentially detrimental event is taking place that may require the player's attention.
Lastly, controls have been somewhat of an ongoing process for us. With controller support, our control mapping is fairly standard enough that the average player could intuitively get the hang of our game, but we know that casual players will have a harder time adjusting. To address this, we will test having buttons and small tool tips on screen to help the player navigate. We do want to keep minimal UI onscreen though, so hopefully it will not be too intrusive.
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