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[JasonPickering]

well working on the final prototype still. leveling and all that is in. it gives a nice sense of progression. still dealing with the problem of telling a player what an item actually does.

this was a menu mockup. it looks good, but doesnt give much room for explanation.



am I worried for nothing? do people always need to know what an item does or will they remember. would a reference sheet somewhere else be better? this is one of the reasons I think a limited skill system is better, because its easier to remember what your skills do then your items.

Edit: maybe this could work?

[BlueSweatshirt]

Yeah that looks good. A small dialog box popping up to explain the item would suffice. Another option is to make a small menu pop up when you tap an item. The menu would show an expanded view of the item including it's description, with buttons to use, equip, discard, etc. or just do nothing.

[CEDE]

Another option could be some kind of sliding mechanism. When you click the item name the info slide from under it pushing the other items down. I guess like a drawer? then you won't have the pop overs.

[rek]

am I worried for nothing? do people always need to know what an item does or will they remember. would a reference sheet somewhere else be better? this is one of the reasons I think a limited skill system is better, because its easier to remember what your skills do then your items.

Only if you think there so many items, or so many that are similar, that this is an issue.

Size/space solutions:
1. Give items descriptive names such as "Health Potion" or "Poison Cure" instead of "Potion".
2. Use existing in-game icons: If "Potion" fills your heart meter, show a looping heart meter filling up, or a heart with a "+" next to it.

It would be a shame to add a bunch of text to something that is otherwise so minimally and conservatively designed.

[CEDE]

Size/space solutions:
1. Give items descriptive names such as "Health Potion" or "Poison Cure" instead of "Potion".
2. Use existing in-game icons: If "Potion" fills your heart meter, show a looping heart meter filling up, or a heart with a "+" next to it.

These sound much better for the solution. Seems like you have room to revise the titles a little. Also if they were animating it would look good in your style.

[JasonPickering]

I guess the main problem comes in when talking about more advanced skills/items (still on the fence on which one I want. leaning towards skills as the pros outway the cons, but we will see.)

A health potion is easy to understand. but its when I get into the more complicated stuff like fireball, that problems arise. I was originally thinking a set of symbols, but that seems odd. like fireball flies in a cardinal direction. but fire blast does damage one square to the left and right of you.

[rek]

I guess the main problem comes in when talking about more advanced skills/items (still on the fence on which one I want. leaning towards skills as the pros outway the cons, but we will see.)

A health potion is easy to understand. but its when I get into the more complicated stuff like fireball, that problems arise. I was originally thinking a set of symbols, but that seems odd. like fireball flies in a cardinal direction. but fire blast does damage one square to the left and right of you.

Rather than symbols, use an animated icon of a mini floor grid showing the skill in action. Fireball flies across three spaces and explodes, etc.

Or... the player chooses the skill and returns to the room. The to-be-effected area is highlighted/outlined, and a rotation symbol over the player indicates they can change the direction (which snaps to cardinals, or whatever the restriction is). Confirm/cancel.

[CEDE]

Hmmm... could the area on top be used?

Say nothing is selected it shows the character info and states, but when you select in item it shows the description there? And where your character icon is you could have a larger animated icon for the item?

Hmmm. Just thinking out loud. Directly at you.

[JasonPickering]

So I think my plan will probably be to have no explanation during the game. before you start you will be able to read what the skills do and you only get 3. so I think that the play should remember what they do. especially if I allow them to pick their skills in the beginning.

I have noticed something about my game though. usually an RPG is about grinding, and building up your character, but in most of the design choices I have made so far the game is not about making yourself stronger, but keeping yourself strong enough to defeat the boss. The game is only 5 levels and your goal is to get to the boss, but all the obstacles in the way are their to weaken you and I think this as an idea is A. different and B. keeping this in mind and realizing that my design is leaning that way will really help me craft the game out to something exciting.



and more Menu designs. The skills each get their own symbol and name. and I am going to be having elements so I color coded their boxes. my initial goal will be normal, fire, and ice. and these will each correspond to floors with specific enemies. later on I plan on adding dark and plant. the numbers are for something I am testing. we will see if it works or not.

[CEDE]

Another option, that would keep your latest revision intact, would be including sorting. It is not as lengthy as individual explanations, but is enough to filter the items into categories that help the player remember what does what - offensive, defensive, healing, abilities, whatever

 

[JasonPickering]

I will probably actually just use the 3 skills. Items will probably be very simple auto use potions that heal you. I did some prototyping and the game goes so fast that giving the player less to manage works much better with the system.

[Franklin's Ghost]

I think that's a smart move. For such a fun game that's meant to be played very quickly I think the simple design is best. Also not hard for the player to remember a few items once they know what they do. Think your new approach will work well.

[JasonPickering]

so game is going strong. I completely redid the Touch screen code yesterday, and today has been setting up the new damage system that all skills and attacks will use. I am compartmentalizing as much of the code as possbile, so it will be easier to tweak small pieces to give me different spells and characters. the main problem is my code speed. right now it goes to fast. the monsters go through their entire turn sequence before they can even register that they have taken damage. My original goal was to make the turn sequencing uber fast and now it looks like I accomplished that but with a bit to much gusto. so I need to take a step back and find out where I can add in a wait command to register. I did the test and it takes 3 frames to go through the damage process now, and activating the monsters only takes 2. so it should be an easy fix.

[JasonPickering]

so Do you guys think I need to add icons for the spells. they are just a piece of visual flair at the moment, but it is a bit hard to make all the different icons and have them actually look different.



Edit:
Also should I maybe look for a new font? this one can be hard to read with W's and M's

[happymonster]

I think your menus are too narrow, you seem to be struggling to fit in the full name and an icon. Why not make the menus a bit bigger?

[JasonPickering]

well at most I can widen it to get one more letter, but I cant go any wider without redoing the game resolution. even without the icon you think it still seems crammed?

[happymonster]

What is the resolution now? It seemed much bigger in the very first screenshots.

[JasonPickering]

its 80 pixels wide and 54 pixels high. Not the most amount of Room to work with, and the largest problem has been the UI. usually RPGs have a tremendous amount of UI on screen, so I have been pairing it down. Right not I use the names for the spells which I think works good, I have 11 Characters to work with in a name including spaces. for some spells its not to bad. Like Freeze, Fireball. I just need to keep the name length to a minimum.



If you have any ideas though I would love to hear them. I even have the menu above if you want to do any edits. I could zoom out a bit and do 96 x 64 but I am not willing to go any larger then that. that would give me another 10 pixels so 2 more letters.

a While ago I switched to a 10x10 tilegrid instead of an 16x16. it meant I couldn't have huge monsters, but it meant I could be a little more zoomed in on the character

Edit: So I dug through some of my older mockups and found one that was 96 x 64. I loaded that and the current one up on my ipod screen and the 80 looks better. the game feels more condensed. of course my opinions might be colored as I have seen both. Most players will not know what the game looked like before.

[happymonster]

Ok, then the other options I can see if you need more text space is to use 3 pixel width characters if possible.

It doesn't look bad now though!

[Franklin's Ghost]

I think the menu you have at the moment seems to work for the game you're making. And I personally like the font you're using.