small fonts and icons

[jj90]

so does this annoy anyone else?

when a game tells you about say and special move and the buttons to press but they are so small you gotta be one inch away from the tv to read or see the letter/shape on the button??

 

[Pandalisk]

Who ISN'T annoyed by it?

 

[Cuniculus]

Might be a TV Problem. Sad to say that I have a pretty crappy one that I got for free, and I always have trouble reading text of almost any kind. I have been over to friend's houses though and seen the same game on a nicer tube, and it comes out perfect. If you do have a nice TV though, disregard.

 

[jimduckie]

yeah it's a pain in the ass but does bigger print and icons eat up disc space ?

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

 

[Antiparticle]

Very, as in that zombie game where you were in the shopping centre.

Yeah, Dead Rising is the worst example of that that I've ever seen. I don't know what they were thinking. The text is literally too small to read. I guess all the developers had really good eyes, or a gigantic TV.

 

[Lukeje]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

[sub]Or even like this...[/sub]

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

[sub]Or even like this...[/sub]

[sub][small]Let's try both...[/small][/sub]

Edit: failed.

 

[Antiparticle]

Yeah, Dead Rising is the worst example of that that I've ever seen. I don't know what they were thinking. The text is literally too small to read. I guess all the developers had really good eyes, or a gigantic TV.

There is a good reason.

Since the game was being developed on the PC their moniters could display the text and font correctly.

Sadly the results weren't carried over to the game for regular tv moniters.

We had to learn about this example in Graphics class as, "Things that you shouldn't do", ie we learned they fucked up big.

Well, that might have been the reason then, but I wouldn't call that a good reason! Nobody on the development team realised that that might happen? That's a strange mistake to make.

 

[Lukeje]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

[sub]Or even like this...[/sub]

[sub][small]Let's try both...[/small][/sub]

Edit: failed.

[sup][sub]How about [sup][sub]?[/sub][/sup]

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

[sub]Or even like this...[/sub]

[sub][small]Let's try both...[/small][/sub]

Edit: failed.

[sup][sub]How about [sup][sub]?[/sub][/sup]

[sub][sub][sub]Trible sub?[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Lukeje]

[small]You mean stuff like this?[/small]

[sub]Or even like this...[/sub]

[sub][small]Let's try both...[/small][/sub]

Edit: failed.

[sup][sub]How about [sup][sub]?[/sub][/sup]

[sub][sub][sub]Trible sub?[/sub][/sub][/sub]

[sub][sub][sub][sub]Holy crap, I had to quote that just to read it.[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[War Penguin]

Do you mean like my avatar? I can barely read the funny thing it says.

 

[WeirdNeville]

Buy a big Telly.
I couldn't read the text on Gears Of War on my old CRT TV. Looks lovely in glorious 40" HD though.

I played all my PS2 games on an old, free 17" CRT which had badly warped colours. The current generation of consoles would have been utterly wasted on it. I remember some of the text in GTA:SA being hard to read.

In all seriousness though I think that there should always be the option of making text larger in the menus somewhere. I remember Huey from Fun Lovin Criminals being asked about the low production standards on their album. His reply was "Some of my boys back on the block only got one speaker, it's gotta sound good for those guys too". Fair point I thought. Make sure your product is fit for its consumer on all levels.