Introduction.
I must design a main menu for my game so when the player launches the game, they are greeted with an interesting menu that should be designed to grab the attention of the player and get them ready for the game. As the main menu is the very first thing they see as they launch the game the main menu should give a good first impression to keep the player interested in playing the game.
Before starting work on the main menu I looked at various main menus from games that I have played and have caught my interests in terms of design and functionality.
Planning.
To get a basic idea of what I want to create for the main menu I have decided on creating a mood board that shows a range of main menus that I like.
These Main Menus are pretty similar due to their features, they all have dynamic features, apart from the Hat menu as this is a concept art piece from art station, they all share the dynamic movement of the background image. I enjoy the simplistic style of the main menus, especially the menu of Alien Isolation. The dynamic movement of the background is very pleasing, however the method of creating the main menu with movement will be very difficult to create, and I don’t want to spend too long creating the main menu when I am very behind in my work.
Designs.
I created a design for a main menu using Photoshop, however in this main menu I kind of got carried away with adding things like birds, blur and robots. I am really pleased how it came out even though it isn’t simplistic like I said I was going to try. I will probably just use this main menu as I don’t have much time left to be messing around on Photoshop creating more concepts.
This will be the main menu of my game, the Play, Exit and Options buttons will glow once hovered over.
Evaluation.
I really enjoyed creating this main menu, now I must create it in Unreal Engine to appear when the player presses start. I would enjoy creating a main menu again as it allows you to express yourself and create what you need for your game.
Lewis Taylor 