Introduction

What does every good menu need? Does it need really flashy lights that are likely to cause epileptic seizures? Does it need different sounds playing all over the place? Does it need pictures of exploding cows?
...if you answered "Yes" to any of those questions, you NEED to read this article. If you didn't, well you might as well read this article anyway. Hey, you might learn something!

The Dont's

I am going to start out with what you shouldn't do when designing a game menu. Now think of it this way. The menu of your game is the first thing that the player is going to be able to interact with. If you've got a crap menu, chances are your game is gonna be crap as well. Now before I get a shit-load of comments on that last line, i'll say that this isn't the case for every game that has a crap menu, but quite often it is.

When a person plays a game, they want to have fun... NOT have a seizure and fall to the ground foaming at the mouth. I have seen far too many games, where it starts up, and I have to run for my welding mask to sheild my eyes. Really flashy lights, in most cases, hurt. Just don't do it. A lot of the time, people just get lazy and put the flashy colors and lights hoping to get a good review. If you want people to play your game, its best not to blind them first. Next, you have to go easy on the sound effects and music. I won't go into detail with this because most already know this from experience, but annoying sound effects and music are just, well, annoying. There's nothing worse than pressing enter on the keyboard to start the game and hearing: "Buzzahshuckaluckahooey" while an annoyingly shory continuously looping midi plays in the background!

And lastly, no exploding cows... they're just not cool...

The Do's

So what does a good menu need? Well first of all, it needs the title. But not just any title... it has to be the title of your game... I find, if the game has a good title, i'm more inclined to download it... Also, how is the title displayed? It has to be a creatively placed title to catch your eye. Plain arial titles suck. Another thing to watch for is the background. A plain solid color isn't any fun! Try making an animated one or even just a still one that depicts some kind of scene relative to your game. Even if you are not artistic, a hand drawn (or mouse drawn) background catches the eye much more than a generic red background. In addition, you will also score brownie points for being original.

When choosing sound effects and music, choose something relevant to your game and something that won't make the player try to rip his (or her) ears off. Nice quiet background music that compliments the title. I know that sounds weird, but when your title is "Super Happy Princess Fairies" and you have MegaDeath playing in the background, it just doesn't seem to work all that good...

Conclusion

So, to finish things up, a good menu makes people want to play your game. Of course, it goes the other way around too... if you have a hella sweet menu and the rest of the game is crap... well you get the picture. All of this information can also be applied to the rest of the game as well. It's just a matter of taking your time and working hard at whatever you are making.

Hope this helps at least one person!

Kevin Haag