When it comes to game development sooner or later you will have to think about the thing most people see when they launch a game – the main menu.
When it comes to “High Stakes” I do wanted to achieve three things
- obtain the oldschool menu look and feel from NFS1, NFS2, NFS3 and NFS4
- transfer the oldschool look and feel to a new experience
- add visually nice effects that give an immersive experience
So, in first place, I took a deeper look to all menus of these four games and compared them.
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/nfs1se.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Need-For-Speed-2-SE-1-1024x576.png)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/maxresdefault-1024x576.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/maxresdefault-1-1024x576.jpg)
As you will see some don’t have anything in common and some differences couldn’t be bigger, I took a note on every single element I really liked about the menu from each game, alsways keeping the usability in mind, e.g. that I do not want to force users to need to use mouse input to browse through the menus.
The following screenshots are work-in-progress state of the current main menu of High Stakes – resembling a mix of all nfs1-nfs4 elements and my very own taste.
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/01-1024x578.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/02-1024x571.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/03-1024x574.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/04-1024x572.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/05-1024x575.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/06-1024x576.jpg)
![](https://phosphorus.games/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/07-1024x571.jpg)