Pixel GUIs

shrug · September 1, 2016, 3:12am

!

The_Blueberry_Hill · September 2, 2016, 7:00am

Here’re some examples from games that simulate OSs that I’ve been making a list of (left out the not pixely ones and super-not interesting ones). Most of them are a bit bland.

Project Perfect Citizen

Digital: A Love Story

Front Mission always felt like this to me, even though I guess they’re just pretty regular RPG text boxes.

The_Blueberry_Hill · September 2, 2016, 7:04am

You don’t know how tempted I am to make GTK versions of everything from this thread.

Iacus · September 2, 2016, 8:56am

Heck yeah Front Mission.
Can’t believe I forgot about it! I’ve always loved it

And if I’d have the time, I’d be tempted to customize a desktop to use them. A lot of Openbox themes have this look because it’s easy to define pixel bevels + plain colors in the theme files. Too bad true pixel fonts aren’t very practical in high-res monitors…

Iacus · September 2, 2016, 8:59am

The chip programming UI in Carnage Heart also has this look of “obscure app that can do cool stuff”, mouse cursor and all

The PSX games look cool

While the PSP game unfortunately goes for the bright buttons glossy look. Yuck!

The_Blueberry_Hill · September 2, 2016, 10:17am

Oh yeah, that’d kinda ruin it : (

jjsimpso · September 4, 2016, 5:26pm

Mid to late 90s Linux desktops were the best. The Enlightenment window manager pretty much sold me on Linux at the time:

This was the first version of enlightenment I used:

Later versions got even more baroque (and more than a little gaudy):

Iacus · September 4, 2016, 5:55pm

I like looking at Enlightenment, but I hate using it.

One of the weirdest experiments in Unix-land’s interface design, that have been sadly abandoned are the docklets/dockapps. Square, dockable monitors/helpers that you could stack on a side of the screen. I’ve had a bunch at some point running on my laptop. Mostly useless, but it makes the desktop look futuristic and cool!

Mikey · September 4, 2016, 6:35pm

Iacus · September 13, 2016, 11:24pm

Fermi Clicker, from the Fermi Jam that ended yesterday

loki · September 13, 2016, 11:37pm

someone on tumblr is making a really nice-looking rpg in the style of old windows, but i can’t remember who they are or the name of their game

spinach · September 15, 2016, 2:54am

there’s similar in some old diskmags, at least the jukebox stuff i’ve been able to find.

janitor · September 15, 2016, 6:33am

the old microprose magic the gathering game had one goofy messy ui going on

spinach · September 16, 2016, 6:04am

i love those things and also enlightenment. haiku has similar dockable apps in its replicants (passed down from beos 5) and a similar menu system to enlightenment except that you’re literally looking at your filesystem (so clean). the major thing i wanted enlightenment to have was dynamic tiling, but it didn’t as of three years ago when i last tried it. haiku’s got that (original to haiku, but its implementation is such that i’m wondering how beos ever did without it) and it is Lovely. still waiting on apps, though!