Re: [Help-liquidwar6] Liquid War 0.0.11beta released

[Kasper Hviid]

2011/10/4 Christian Mauduit <address@hidden>:
> Hi,
>> strange-new-world     PLAYER: red ENEMY: blue
>> fishy         PLAYER: red ENEMY: green (level effect: wrap)
>> liquid-dream PLAYER: red ENEMY: yellow
>> nine-points   PLAYER: green ENEMY: 2*yellow (level effect:tunnel)
>> acadia        PLAYER: green ENEMY: 2*blue
>> playfield     PLAYER: green ENEMY: 2*red      (level effect:wrap)
>> ink-and-oil   PLAYER: blue ENEMY: red + yellow
>> five-points  PLAYER: blue ENEMY: green + yellow (level effect:tunnel)
>> january       PLAYER: blue ENEMY: red + yellow + blue
>> pizza-face    PLAYER: yellow ENEMY: red+green+blue (level effect:wrap)
>> subflower     PLAYER: yellow ENEMY: red+green+blue
>> fish          PLAYER: yellow ENEMY: all
> Is that the order you plan? I'd personnnally would save wrapping stuff for at
> least 3rd or 4th level (fishy with its "negative polarity" can be confusing
> for newcomers I guess).

Hey, you're right!

> 1) we need a (very basic) help screen. As I view things now, we'd typically
> need a bitmap (a HD720 1280x720 would be perfect) that represents a keyboard,
> a mouse, a joystick, and explains the key bindings. I'm saying this for nobody
> will ever read any doc that says you need to press CTRL to fire and ALT for
> alternate fire. For some reason (anticipating chat...) using ENTER does not
> work in that case. Same for mouse right button / middle button bindings. The
> bindings are described here:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6/manual/html_node/User-interface.html#User-interface
> (I think there are errors in this page, I just forgot the num/keypad
> bindings...). This help screen would be displayed in two contexts: a) when
> bench is calculated at startup the first time you launch it (the "please wait"
> stuff) and b) when F1 is pressed. This is a very basic basic help but it gives
> the essentials: key bindings + informs you there's a fire option + suggests
> you can use several input devices.
>
> 2) I need to find a way to display text to explain things. Basically when
> selecting yellow in the menu, you would have a description for yellow
> displayed.
>
> 3) whenever a new color is made available, it should be described too. For
> instance, "You can now play purple, purple is yada yada yada...", "yada yada
> yada" simply being what is displayed when choosing purple in the menu.

A basic help screen. Displaying text to explain things. Color
explanation. Okay, lets see ...

Displaying a bitmap requires (relatively) little coding. The negative
part is that bitmaps takes up space, and that it will be english only.
But it could quickly get the job done, and would even look good!

Another option: Each text element is scripted. So the text "Ny farve
tilgængelig" is importet from the translation, while the position,
size and color of the text is defined by the script. This would make
it possible to create some more advanced text layout while keeping
stuff multilingual. But of course, this would require programming.

A fullscreen info:
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/1481/lw6newcolor.jpg

We could also have a smaller gui element:
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6499/lw6newcolor2.jpg
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/6963/lw6newcolor3.jpg

A smaller gui element would fit better with the various window sizes.
Of course, there is a fundamental psychological difference between:
A) FULLSCREEN: It dominates everything, the user has no connection
with the previous location.
B) SMALLER GUI ELEMENT: the user are still at the same location, but
there is a popup-window on top.
(I'm talking strictly about how the user experiences it. They both
work the exact same way.)

>
> One word about the "exp" system. In the current release, I acknowledge it's a
> little weird. The idea was to release it ASAP so that you could toy with it
> and build a first "level chain", "scenario", whatever we call it. As I used
> this version, I realized that we need to find a way to clearly expose that
> "there are some more levels but you can't play them now". Most games do this
> by displaying unallowed levels but marking them as unplayable (be it displayed
> with transparency, greyish-colors, or a big red "not available" written on
> it). I think we should do this in LW6, show all levels as a teaser, only you
> can't play them. Then the exp system feels natural, you play, level is
> unlocked, you're redirected on it, does not seem that complex to use, is it?

Yep, the redirection is good. But it is a little wierd that I have to
open exp.xml to see my score. Showing levels as teaser sounds like the
right way to go.

BTW, I just played Minecraft, it was updated since last time I played.
Now it has exp too!

 - Kasper