Hi there, Ludum Dare Mates! LD 46 Event is approaching and I’m just curious, how do you guys build GUIs (or should I call it a HUD? Is there some key difference?) in your game jam submissions? Do you have your own polished pipeline of producing GUIs addressing all player’s needs? Maybe you mastered some mature tricks and practices, some principles and life hacks you use.

Below are some examples of various HUDs and GUIs:

1. Into The Breach. Best seller, definitely. Very intuitive and cool GUI as for me. Not overloaded so much.
2. One of the LD 45 leaders. Game titled “Terra Nil - Reclaim the Wasteland”
3. My LD44 game. Just few labels, HP bar (hearts row in top left corner of the screen)

I’m interested in this topic as I’d like to make a game to be clear and user-friendly to player (to the detriment of innovation and originality, perhaps I admit). But I do not have any rich experience, I’m more a tech guy, a coder rather than a game designer or UI/UX designer. So, I’d appreciate any tips or links to the guides and papers related to building GUIs which you found very useful and cool in the context of game development.