A couple small UX suggestions


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I've been playing Don't Starve for the past couple weeks, although I've been very very busy with school and stuff, so I haven't gotten super far along or anything yet, but I have a couple suggestions as far as some UI things go that I know would at least make my experience with the game better.

It'd be really nice if when you ate something or researched something, it'd have a little number pop up with a +/- next to it, probably also in green or red, depending on whether it was good or bad. Like if you eat something that restores, say, 10 fullness, a green +10 pops up over the hunger bar thing. And if you research something, a green +1 or +7 or however much science you acquired from it would pop up (or probably down from, considering that the science number is at the top of the screen). I constantly want to compare certain foods to one another to help determine which ones are more worth the effort at such, and I don't like having to do the math in my head of mousing over the hunger bar, eating something, then mousing over it again.

I also keep thinking some of the numbers actually vary a little bit, but I haven't been fully convinced of that because I keep thinking that maybe I just made a mistake when checking how much science/fullness/health I've been getting from various things. It also MIGHT be good to have numbers pop up showing the damage tools/armor take, but that might be getting a bit in to the region of screen clutter. Although for log suits it might be nice.

Of course, there's always the risk of that taking away some of the science and trial/error to determining which foods and such are better than others. Like, it took me about a week to realize that monster meat was dealing some serious damage to me when I ate it. Of course, the numbers displayed wouldn't have to be 100% revealing. Like, they'd probably only show the actually fullness gained, not the potential fullness (so if you ate something that fills you up 20% when at 95% fullness, you'd only see +5). But yeah.

The other big issue I've had, which has been helped a LOT in the latest update, but still needs a liiiiittle bit of work, is the crafting interface being a tad bit overwhelming to a new player. Cutting down options when not at a science station to things you can actually craft is a big help. And breaking it up in to two tiers helped too, I think. But it's still overwhelming when deciding things to unlock. And the initial crafting options can still be MILDLY overwhelming.

The main problem I have is that I never feel like I can just take a moment to browse the crafting options and research options. Any time you're looking through the crafting menu, time in game is still ticking by. It'd be really nice if there was somewhere where you could browse all the options while paused or just out of the game.

I guess that's about it. Sorry for rambling so much xD

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