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Can I fix Zelda's UI using Unity? (+ Unity project download)
🕑 Added 2025-02-07 15:54:34 +0000 UTCHey Patrons!
"The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has some baffling user interface design. So I decided to make some alternative versions in Unity to see if we could improve things."
You can watch the video on YouTube or on Nebula, or read it as an article on Substack.
You can also try the UI demonstrations yourself at Itch.io.
This video was really fun to make! I've done a lot of UI work in Unity now, across Mind Over Magnet and my upcoming word game, so I could put those skills to good use. But I also had to learn a whole bunch of new things too.
As a Patreon supporter you get access to the full project file. You'll find it in the attachments down below. Once you've got it, you can open it in Unity Hub.
Feel free to use the code however you want, but note that it includes code from DoTween, MyBox, UI Outline, and Rounded Corners, which all have their own licenses. And it includes assets from Nintendo which, obviously, shouldn't be used in any commercial projects!
Update: I made a few changes to fix some bugs and improve the spiral layout. You can find the updated project below, as Zelda UI Demo 1.1.
Thanks for supporting what I do, and I'll chat to you soon!
Mark
Comments
Jeremiah Franczyk
Love the structure of the video, with the different solutions and relative strengths and weaknesses of each. Hope you do more like this! For my playstyle, I think Option 3 (Grid with tabs) is the most efficient in terms of picking any given Echo from the full list. I really like Option 5 though, I missed BG&E back in the day but the elegance of a spiral staircase UI is so cool, and somewhat in keeping with the stated dev philosophy of going through the list and landing on Echoes you might not otherwise try.
Willhart
So, it would be cool to allow more AI on the next gmtk game jam, as it can be very useful for solving problems. For code at least, and maybe for art too, if those two are not that different to you. You cannot use either the ai art or ai code that directly anyway, if you want to make something good. Human is still in the lead.
Mustafa Haddara
Ok this was super cool! I loved it, and actually watched it twice, once on my own and then again with a friend. I really like the idea of looking into pain points in popular games and playing with different prototypes and explorations of different solutions. I also appreciated the structure of the video— you’ve got a clever bit of foreshadowing with the “have you ever tried typing on a keyboard with a joystick” leading into the eventual “reveal” of the final prototype, and withholding the bit about Nintendo’s intentions until _after_ option 4 makes for a fun twist. I am looking forward to playing with the different prototypes on itch!
Björn Apel
As a web designer this was an fun video to explore. I still think there is another option, which would a mix between some of them: Simple Tabs. The Design would look like this: Fighters o x o o o o [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] { X } [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] Club Boarblin Lv. 2 Last Used x o o o It is still the same menu from the game, but if you move the control-stick upwards, you get to the tabs. Then you can simply move left and right to change the tab. Press down to get back to selection. This way you can control the whole UI with just the control-stick. The tabs can be “All”, “Objects”, “Birds “, etc. (like your tabs) and the current category appears above the tabs, which still can be sorted by pressing Y. The game saves the last tab you had open. The control-stick input in the UI can be changed, that it favors left and right motions and only register harsh up and down movement. So the control-stick should behave fine. This would still have the developers indented way, where you may find something, you weren’t searching for. But if you have an idea, what you want to achieve, you have a faster way to through the list.
