Hey guys! So I love making GUI’s and just really like the studio Roblox has to offer. I’ve been around for a while but have never fully dedicated any time towards a real project. I’m just unsure of the direct to take the project.
Below are both of my main menu GUI’s. One realistic and gritty, the other cartoonish and fun. Which one would you guys prefer?
I feel the cartoon one looks much more refined, the realistic one looks quite bland I feel. I would definitely go for the cartoon.
The cartoon design for sure gives a more professional vibe to your game,kinda reminds me of some mobile games style,i’d for sure go for the cartoon one!
I love both the GUIs, but it really comes down to the game your making. If your making a game like booga booga, then I recommend using the realilistic one. If your making a story game lets say, then I recommend using the cartoony one. Overall though, I prefer the cartoony one, my only suggestion is to make a background behind the buttons and text! 
I am attempting to make a game somewhat comparable to Pirates of the Caribbean online, a relic game of my child hood. Although I noticed on roblox that a large majority of the popular games follow a cartoonish fun style and I dont know how to go about doing that when its a game related to “Pirates.”
Usually, GUI choice comes down to personal preference. Though, if you do need help with the choice then I would suggest picking the one that fits your game’s concept more. A dark and mysterious game surely needs serious and realistic UI and a game that is designed to be fun and friendly needs a cartoony UI. Unfortunately, these rules can not be applied for all games, as you could have a cartoony game with a very dark story beside it. To be honest, to answer these questions you would need to deeply descend into philosophy and because of that I would suggest you to just bruteforce it on your own.
So, If we are looking at it, roblox consists mostly of young people, so It would be easy to get them to your game with the cartoony style, but If you are not up to the cartoon style, to attract roblox’s young audience with the realistic style , you need to impress them, be ready to spend a lot of time on details in game, and to spend a lot of time on building.
Overall, it is your personal choice, if you are going with the cartoonish style, the the logical thing is for the rest of your game to be cartoonish, if going with realistic, then of course, the rest of your game would logically be realistic looking.
Considering that you are attempting to make something related to pirates, the story here could be mixed, my sense, honestly gives me that the cartoonish one looks better, it just gives me that feel, but at the same time, it is really hard for even me to decide, I suggest experimenting with the both styles, try making one portion of the game as you intended it to be, and then overlay both of the UIs, and then come to an conclusion which looks better.
Keep it also like this, [If going with the cartoonish style, the map, and probably the rest of the game should be made in the low-poly style, as most of the games keep it that way, if going with the realistic style, keep it real, make sure there is a lot of detail, the builds should be looking good and realistic. Long story short, if going with realistic, there will be a lot of work needed to be put, the realistic style to a game, always brings a lot of nitpicky people.
I completely agree with you on this. Also thanks for the suggestion of mixing the styles during the production process. I think for now I may try and go for the cartoonish style as it will be friendlier with the majority of roblox users and not specifically targeted to the Mil-Sim style history groups.