Horizontal vs. Vertical Gauges

[D.L. Yomegami]

I wasn't sure if this was a better fit for this forum or the Mechanics discussion forum. I ultimately decided to put it here since it's about an aesthetic thing, but if I was mistaken I won't object if a mod moves it.

A while back I was working on making a mockup of my battle GUI, among which includes two vertical gauges for EX skills (limit breaks, basically). In the process I noticed that vertical HP and MP bars would probably fit better than the default horizontal ones in the individual actor windows. That further got me thinking, however, when I realized that I haven't seen many games that use vertically aligned gauges (Mega Man is the only game that comes to mind that uses vertical gauges). Most games seem to opt for horizontal gauges instead.

Is there a good reason for that? To me it feels more like an aesthetic choice more than anything else (if anything, I'd think vertical gauges have the advantage of not obscuring the game window as much), but if vertical gauges are this uncommon it seems to me there's some disadvantage to them.

 

[Milennin]

I prefer horizontal, but I guess it doesn't really matter that much. Either way works.

 

[Low]

I think it mostly comes down to the information or text that usually is paired with gauges. Text and numbers are presented horizontally usually so my guess is that's the reason it's common. I don't see any reason why one is better than the other. In some designs or layouts one would suit specific situations better than the other but it's a case by case thing. It should all come down to readability and how good information is presented. I'm all for new interesting ways to display information so long as it is done well.

 

[MushroomCake28]

Agree with the above post: text is displayed horizontally, so it would make more to have horizontal bars if you're going to display text on it (like HP/MP). Furthermore, as a developers we have to work inside a certain canvas, and most of the time there is more space horizontally than vertically. The default resolution is 816x624, so you have about 30% more pixel horizontally than vertically. And some people such as myself prefer to go for main stream resolutions, which would be a 16:9 aspect ratio, giving more width than height.

This does not mean horizontal bars are the only choice. Sometimes I believe a vertical bar would make more sense:

• If the bar is too big, it makes more sense to have it vertically than horizontally since it would take less strategic space on the screen.
• When the bar represents something common to all party members or all enemies: overlimit, hp, mp, etc.
• When you want to differentiate when element among others. Example: a big vertical bar for a boss, and you keep small horizontal bars for normal enemies.
• Other stuff.

 

[Aesica]

I used vertical gauges in a game before, but that's only because the gamefield for that particular game valued vertical real estate moreso than horizontal. All the gauges, info, etc was in a sort of skinny vertical window on the right side of the game window, and it worked well. However, unless you're making that kind of game, horizontal is generally more pleasant to look at, at least IMO.