World in Conflict – Interface

I have introduced World in Conflict in a previous article, examined the conflict part of the game, now we will have a look at the user interface.

At the beginning of a round, after you have selected your general role in the team, you get to pick a place where your reinforcements will be dropped onto the map. Planes will deliver all units, dropping them in crates with attached parachutes.

This is the user interface which holds all the functions a player will need to play the game.
At the bottom left corner we can see the mini-map and associated control buttons to quickly move the camera around the map.
Following the bottom edge there are small icons representing the player’s units which is a handy way to quickly select them without having to move the camera around the map to track them down just to select them and then having to move back to where he intended to send them.

The bottom right corner holds the unit command interface. Each type of units have two special abilities, one offensive and one defensive. They are represented by the big buttons to make them easy to reach. Next to those buttons are general commands such as formation, stop, fire on the ground, drive backwards etc.

The top right corner holds the buy menu where the different types of units are grouped up into tabs. You can see the available points and the units which can be bought using those points. The player spends his points, buying a set of units which are queued up until he presses the parachute button at the bottom of that menu. Once the order has gone trough the player has to wait for a plane to drop the batch of units.

The top middle holds the round’s status display, in the case of the screenshot, the number of command points under my control and the round timer.

Finally the top left corner menu provides support options, air strikes or artillery support to barrage an area as measure for defending an area where there are no friendly units nearby or to provide a preemptive strike against a target area. Options range from artillery barrages of different density and area effects to carpet bombing, napalm bombs, anti air or tank missile strikes and nuclear strikes. A similar points & buy system applies as to the unit buying system.

The player is always informed of the status of his currently deployed units, his points and the status of his orders. Whenever something happens which requires the player’s attention the appropriate controls start to blink red which is great for usability.

All buttons are icon based which presents a bit of a learning curve, but each button has a rollover label and a box in the corner of the screen displaying the specific stats of a unit or action.
No matter which role or faction a player chooses, the icons will always look the same, just the unit price, stats and models will differ.

The interface is very clean and easily accessible even in the heat of battle. It doesn’t take up too much screen real estate and the buy menus retract once the player has finished interacting with them.