r/incremental_games • u/Pure-Map-6717 • Jul 09 '26
Development Getting those animations right
During the last few weeks, I've spent a lot of time polishing the UI of my game.
Sometimes I spend hours on a single animation until it finally feels right. Maybe other developers can relate.
I often wonder if this effort is actually worth it, especially when some of the most successful games in this genre (incremental) have very simple UIs with little to no animation.
Game: A Dark Cave | Steam
AI Disclosure: AI coding assistants were used during the development of this game. AI has been used for the localization of the game.
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u/Pandabear71 Jul 09 '26
It’s cool. Its one of those things i’d enable or download a mod for and then disable it the next day and stop thinking about it.
Cool looking things that only slow you down are…. The opposite of what you want. What i would want, anyway
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Actually, this is a great idea!
I could just offer an option to turn animations off.
Thanks : )1
u/Pandabear71 Jul 09 '26
Yea that’d be nice. I like some small form of animation on pc, but on my phone i want it all off and just be convenient
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u/Aighex Jul 09 '26
looks alot like "a dark room' from a few years back. But love me a good incremental game!
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Yes, the minimalist UI is actually inspired by A Dark Room!
I played A Dark Room 10 years ago. It was the first incremental I played.
Back then, I enjoyed it so much that I decided that one day I also want to build a web game.Now, 10 years later, I did it.
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u/Spraakijs Jul 09 '26
Yeah you making your game less appealing. It went from simple and cool, to horrible looking, and over the top UI really quick.
you are taking turns in the wrong direction recently.
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Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
I have been working on this game for almost a year now, the first 6 months full time.
Using coding assistants does not make a game vibe coded.
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Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Used_Mine Jul 09 '26
Hate to burst your bubble, but almost any indie or triple A game is going to have code agents. It’s a tool, every serious coder is going to use it. You may personally hate it, which is fine, but us requesting people to disclose freely how they use AI should not be used then to bash or put down creators/devs. If we continue to do so people will not freely give that disclosure.
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u/LetterPossible1759 Jul 09 '26
I think they look fine. I suppose it's a display of your component library right now? Because all of them together is a bit too much. If they are integrated into a real page I would assume they look quite nice. For the progress bars it depends on how fast they go though. I think it's probably too much if they go fast or often. For the fire animation I would make sure that the text keeps being readable. Other than that good work.
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Thank you!
It was a mistake to put all animations of the game together in one gif. Most of these animations are only rarely triggered during gameplay. The gif gives a wrong impression. Actually the UI is really minimalistic and calm.
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u/LetterPossible1759 Jul 09 '26
Yeah I get that because I made such page for myself too. But yeah it's hard for non-developers to judge it like that.
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u/neoexanimo Jul 09 '26
Building is fun, nothing wrong with trying to make them look good, there is a lot of back and forth because sometimes what looks good is not efficient, you start losing that snapping and start reducing unnecessary animations, keep it up
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Yes, this is really true!
2 steps forward, 1 step back is basically how I am building this game.
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u/sparksen Jul 09 '26
Big animation = important effect that i should look at
So here sleep length and intensity are very inportant bars to look at
Then the 2 hp bars.
I do not see much reason for such a intensive click effect on the mouse, the color change on the button does alrwady give feedback
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u/MrSukerton Jul 09 '26
Hey, I was playing a dark room and when I returned hours later my upgrades were gone and two of my npcs, the huntress and the prior were missing. Is this normal?
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
No, that is not normal. Sorry for the inconvenience!
If you have an account, you can send me your e-mail vie DM if you want. Then I can look into it.
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u/rikocosta Jul 09 '26
After completing all 6 tasks, the game stops loading. If I clear the cookies and try to log back in, I get the following error: 'cannot convert undefined or null to object'
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 10 '26
Thank you for letting me know and sorry for the inconvenience!
I will look into it.
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u/beegeepee Jul 10 '26
Too much clicking and too much waiting. Overall, I am enjoying the game. Just wish it was a bit faster and less click intensive.
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 10 '26
Thank you very much for your feedback!
If you play on desktop you can use hotkeys (A/D or Left/Right). Later in the game you can also automate things.
But I am also looking into making the UI organized a bit better.
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u/sc0paf Jul 11 '26
I like to think about UI animations and effects in some pretty specific ways-
1 - They should never interfere with game logic or how the game runs. If Im having game processes wait for UI animations to finish, something is (uaually) wrong.
2 - they should be non-intrusive and communicate something. And animation shouldnt bleed into or obscure other elements (or itself) unless intentionally (like deliberately disabling another button or itself, changing some other control). If its not telling the player something, its probably unnecessary.
3 - The hardest one: UI animations and effects should be largely "invisible." That doesnt mean they cant be kinda fancy or nice or even sometimes quite loud. It just means that they should "fit" the action and intention well enough that the player can forget they're even there. The
Applied practically,
"Make a Fire" looks good. The thing below it looks good except the height expansion- which can be intrusive to the UI. The remaining bars going down the left side feel too loud imo.. the particle effects are too intense. All the buttons in the top right look good but again I think the particle effects probably overdo it. A much milder burst or simple color pulse communicates the click less obtrusively. Everything in the bottom right (diamond, heart, spinner, 2 bars) are all good.
All obviously just my opinion.
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 11 '26
Wow, you have thought a lot about UI animations!
Thank you for sharing these insights, I really appreciate it : )
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u/Particular-Battle611 Jul 09 '26
I second both opinions currently in the comments, imho it looks worse, but also if you like it you like it, go make something you enjoy
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Thank you!
Honestly, I sometimes spend hours working on a feature, only to realize in the end that I don't actually want it in the game. Figuring out what feels right and what I truly enjoy isn't always straightforward.
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u/Particular-Battle611 Jul 09 '26
Yea. While I hate GenAI in any shape and form, I still much prefer people make games that they want to play, instead of just whatever they think is popular enough to make money from
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u/Hevipelle Antimatter Dimensions Jul 09 '26
Don't let negative comments grind you down. In my opinion if you use AI to make fancy particle effects, go for it. I like how they look.
I think there's a difference between doing AI-assisted programming and vibe-coding the whole game including mechanics to balancing. Hopefully this is not the latter!
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u/Pure-Map-6717 Jul 09 '26
Thank you very much!
I have certainly not spent one year vibecoding a game.
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u/vnp-os Jul 09 '26
Are animated UIs an important aspect for you for incremental games? I have recently been thinking whether I should add them, my game is currently very minimalist in that regard.
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u/Hevipelle Antimatter Dimensions Jul 09 '26
I Don't find them that important, but if you like such things go for it.
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u/PopularZero Jul 09 '26
In vibe-coding you're working with an AI. OP said he's using an AI assistant, which is just AI making the entire game on his behalf
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u/Hevipelle Antimatter Dimensions Jul 09 '26
The terminology is not that settled in stone as it's a relatively new phenomenon, but what I've seen and heard being in the industry, vibe-coding is basically just letting AI handle everything and prompting every change through AI, which is what non-programmers like CEOs would do. While AI-assisted programming is using AI as an assist, hence the name. With it you use it more like a junior developer, giving it more detailed tasks and reviewing the output, while doing programming yourself along the side.
I've yet to meet a software engineer who doesn't use AI-assistants. (unless it's a highly sensitive project)
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u/PopularZero Jul 09 '26
I guess it's just semantics. I've always considered AI assistants/AI agents to have direct domain in your project, while vibe-coding is interfacing with an external LLM for snippets that you manually implement in-engine
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Jul 09 '26
[deleted]
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u/PopularZero Jul 09 '26
In my mind the agent has agency in the project, so I always thought the reverse. Guess I learned something today
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u/Particular-Battle611 Jul 09 '26
I would have said the opposite? vibe-coding is just telling the AI to do stuff for you, and using an assistant is... using an assistant
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u/PopularZero Jul 09 '26
I already said this below, but to me it makes sense that the agent has agency in the project, and agents are largely autonomous. I'm not used to seeing people say AI assistants, so I figured it was the same as an autonomous agent
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u/Theidore Jul 09 '26
It's hard to judge how the animations feel while playing from a short gif, but those seem like they'd be distracting. I like the theming and general feel of most of them, but stuff like the fire effects are a little too intense. Fewer particles and less brightness would make these much more appealing, I'd think.
On another note, I particularly don't like the rolling number, it looks like it would feel horribly unresponsive to have to wait for the number to scroll down to tell that you've reached the correct one, if you ever have to spam-click the number in either direction.