Telegraphing

07 March 2020 - 2 mins read time
Tags: Games Design Personal Final Project SHMUP

Understanding how to convey something to the player is a crucial aspect of any game. And it’s something that I admittedly forgot to add when I was rushing to get my first test build out of the door. A common complaint that came up amongst play testers was that they were unable to understand if they were dealing damage to an enemy or if the enemy was dealing damage to them. I watched in futility as player after player kept shooting indestructible objects aimlessly and were unaware they were being hit during a dodge phase only for them to die.

A solution to problems such as these come from our good friend telegraphing. Telegraphing comes from sports wherein athletes try to avoid telegraphing their move to their opponent. To telegraph something is to show it to them through some indirect means. (MMA 2000) If you’ve ever seen someone dodge a hit in Dark Souls or ever seen an enemy in Spyro charge up before dashing or throwing something you’ve seen telegraphing in action. Take a look at the following gif for an example:

Enemy performing slow, exaggerated movements to telegraph their intent to the player.


However, telegraphing is used for far more than just enemy attacks. Telegraphing applies to anything that you’re trying to visually communicate to a player, this includes things such as navi floating over an item of interest, or a rope that helps you understand what you can climb in Uncharted, or even a musical cue that hints at a upcoming enemy or treasure (Fullerton and Zimmerman, 2014)

With regards to my damage issue. As stated by Adams E, 2000, colour can be used to telegraph emotions as well as actions and elicit responses. Following that, I aim to make use of flashing colour changes to denote when an enemy or the player has been hit. With regards to accessibility due to the shifting of the hue and brightness, colour blindness should not be affected by this and it should help to telegraph to a player when a hit has taken place.

Here’s an example of my new telegraph after I implemented it:

Hopefully now it’s a lot more clear is or isn’t hittable. I plan to improve on this effect further at a later date when more pressing things have been completed. Till next time!

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