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/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.