Why so much wasted space? I mean you want to play the game, not look at a gui right? 

That's a good question and probably somewhat rhetorical, but actually one I've been thinking about. I agree with what you're saying but there are some other issues.

The borders around the panes are so big because x and y layout is based on character  coordinates (cells), not pixel coordinates.

In the display library I'm using it is possible to go to subcell resolution but it's not something I've looked into yet. I leave three character margins all around so that whatever pane is selected and highlighted, there always is a one-cell padding that is never highlighted -- I felt this looked better than two-cell padding. I'll experiment some more, maybe one-cell padding would look OK. I haven't thought of other ways to show the active selection.

The other option is to only show panes like the message window, journal, and inventory when the player asks for them, but I've been avoiding this because personally I don't like switching views a whole lot when I play a game...maybe some kind of hidden pop-out pane could work instead.

the visuals here are beautiful, just beautiful. Can't wait to see it in action! The concept is very sweet as well. 

I've always thought of the Escapist as a harmless games mag with a good article every couple of years. The utter lack of due diligence in that article blew my mind, and now to hear they're defending it...

You do seriously develop fast hand-eye coordination washing dishes.

Anyone who think working out is boring may want to read this.

Also I've been told if you want to work out and build muscles, you need to eat more protein than you would normally.

I think the text looks a little messy, and hard-to-read

No I think you're right, there's something weird about that particular font sheet...I'll try out some others.

It might also be cool if you could put the 1234 inventory in a horizontal order as opposed to vertical, if only to have some correlation between keyboard layout and screen layout.

Does the turn count have anything to do with the gameplay?

Yeah the horizontal layout does make more sense, thanks. As far as turn count that's a good question. It never really occurred to me whether it was important or not, it just seemed part of most roguelike interfaces...but it's really only important as feedback that a turn has passed. I think this information could be important for certain things but until I figure out what those are maybe I should drop it. 

I actually like the separate panel. You must take care to make the most of it, but if it will work like a book that stores information, I think it could be very helpful. (If it lets you go back and read old information without getting your action-panel flooded.)

Even so, a few more lines of action history wouldn't hurt.

Yeah that's the idea about the book panel. Though Xion's feedback made me think it could be good to align the book and action panels more vertically, so they would be separate but still in the same visual area. Thanks for the comment about the size of the action panel, I was wondering about that.

I've reached the point with a roguelike/textmode RPG in development that I'd like some comments on the UI -- anything about what looks bad (or good) is very welcome.

This is meant to be a simple/coffeebreak game, with more story than a classic roguelike would have.

Here's an in-game screen and afterward the same screen explaining what the different parts of the screen represent (click for full-size):





Players use inventory items by hitting a number key 1-4. The journal/dialog pane is for examining items, character conversation, reading things, and maybe character/item portraits. The message log is for brief messages of what's happening as you play. Some other things like turn count display around the window border.

The brownish highlight around the inventory pane means that pane is selected; when you select a pane you can do additional things like scroll through the message log and so on.

The weird orange thing in the background is just a stand-in for having a background wallpaper over which the panes will float.

That about does it I think, thank you for any comments!

seriously, these environments are looking brilliant, and combined with the actual game concept it's blowing my mind!

this is pretty inspiring:

Adventure Game Studio?

Are those demos working for anyone else right now?

[third]

That horned thing is adorable.

welcome to the forums  , and like Sparky said don't forget the introduction thread (for your third post  )

I know I just had realized that a bunch of the game I had listed in the first post (Rogue, Elite, Zelda) involve killing/shooting/stabbing, so I figured I would hone the definition of the game a bit more.

it's funny though, because when you listed those influences the first thing I thought of was procedurally generated + multiple modes of play + exploration + questing, and that's what I reacted to. Though on second thought while yeah, those games center around combat, I don't think they necessarily say 'combat'.

Plus Oregon Trail.

I'm curious about this too, as even though I haven't used Construct yet I've been meaning to try it out. Looking at the XAudio2 object it seems like music and sound effects are treated separately, even though it seems like you could play music through a sound effect channel if the music was in .ogg format. You can check if a sound effect is playing, but I don't see how you can tell explicitly if the music stream is playing...it seems like the conditions and properties of XAudio are available only for channels (for which you could check if a file is playing, etc.), not the music stream, or am I not understanding that correctly?

I love you. Also I'm hungry and need a sandwich now.

it seems like the biggest difference between a H&S game like Gauntlet and a sidescrolling beat'em up is the number of enemies. The big thing about Gauntlet was the flood of enemies. More enemies to...hack?

And so ends my glorious mudding days. For some reason the password I wrote down doesn't match the actual password for my account. And they don't have any "forgotten your password?" service. Well. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

ouch...I'll file a bug on that one.

[Soldat]

I've played this a few times now and I like it! Good theming and visual style. I think its main drawback right now is a lack of dynamism. Some specifics:

* enemies don't seem to move from their platform. I don't know if you've played Soldat...I'm not saying it has to be that crazy but borrowing some of the enemy movement from that game would help I think.

* as a corollary to this your guy's jump/move speed could be a little faster I think, maybe 25-33% faster?

* the headlines are great but to me are displayed in a weird place and in a typeface that doesn't really mesh with the visual style of the rest of the game. I guess the first issue has to do with a game that scrolls down a lot, since putting it at the top would lose it....maybe a separate banner pane at the top with a scrolling/teletype style headline in a more blocky typeface?

* agreed about the medic tent...I too thought I was doing some war crimes there (didn't read the readme first)! Which...I hate to say it...sort of works in the concept of the game but probably not what you were going for.

Finally let me just say the flamethrower is crazy ACE.  :D

Heat Line's gameplay will be a futuristic mix of Oregon Trail, a Rogue-like, Elite, and Zelda.

Stay warm. Stay alive. Stay on the line. And save your family.

hell yes! Keeping my eye on this.

That looks really promising, I love those little soldier kinds of games in that visual style. Looking forward to a release!

yes, please more abstract blocky beauty, less...is that Times New Roman? This has great style other than the border UI -- which looks like a placeholder maybe? Also Monstroyka is a great name.