Pre-Order the Game!

Desura Digital Distribution

Monday, September 16, 2013

Font, Color, and Size Vote

First, thanks to XenoBrain for the blank main menu button artwork!  I decided to experiment with font, color, and sizing with this.  I just learned that the 2D engine that I'm using supports font shadowing!  So with this, it's a lot more readable.  However, I'm undecided on the color, which of the three do you like the best?  I'm leaning towards Gold as it's most readable.  If you have any other color combination suggestion (font and shadow colors), let me know!



The MoO 1-esque font that I bought also came bundled with three other fonts.  Basically narrow and wide versions of two different fonts.  I didn't realize this, since the font that I tried only came with one ttf file, and when I purchased it, I set the font data to that font.  But looking at the other fonts, I realized that they're more readable than the one that I was using.  I'm thinking of changing to the wide version of the font I was using (JLSSpaceGothicC), but if you guys prefer the other font, let me know (also, narrow or wide version that you like better).  Changing this will require some re-sizing of some UI controls as the font will extend past them in some places.  I'd like to change once and fix some UI sizes, then forget about fonts until I implement the UI layout code.


Edit: Thanks for your responses!  I've decided on Wide Space Gothic font, and discovered that at size 11, it's about the same length as the narrow one at 12, but is more readable (i.e. the exclamation mark don't look like a bar).  Here's what it looks like:


8 comments:

  1. The JLSDataGothicC Wide seems by far easiest on the eyes to me. It doesn't have as much character as the SpaceGothic, but it also doesn't give me a headache to read :P

    But I'll probably just change the font on my own to something super-gay like French Script MT; so it's no big deal to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with Gabriel and I'll expand on that.

    When it comes to large amount of text, wide JLSDataGothicC looks the best among presented ones. Though the narrow version would be better if 'a' and 's' didn't look like 8 and 9.

    When it comes to the menu, feel free to go for a fancy one. One with the character as Gabriel said :). So wide JLSSpaceGothicC there.

    As for color, cyan and green yellow doesn't work well the background, so gold. Shadows look good there in the menu.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree, gold looks best, and JLSDataGothicC wide is the most readable. Wouldn't mind the other fonts except JLSSpaceGothicC in non-wide.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks great! Another vote for Gold & Wide.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry meant to specify SpaceGothic. It's true it's not quite as readable (though certainly readable enough) as DataGothic and normally I prefer more readable fonts but in a game without much text the font with more character gets the vote.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for all of your responses! Two votes for Data, 1 vote for Space, and 1 vote for Any-But-Narrow-Space. Since I like Space and you guys don't seem to mind the wide version too much, I'm going with Space Wide. I also noticed that if I shrink the font size from 12 to 11, it actually looks better and clearer, with the exclamation mark not a straight line.

    I've implemented the changes, which you can see in the svn log on bottom of blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was exclamation mark? I wondered why the sentence ended with capital 'I' and mentally reinterpreted it as lowercase L :).

      Delete
    2. Haha, yes. I've updated the post with a screenshot of the size 11 font for reference.

      Delete