AuthorTopic: Fantasy Miniatures  (Read 24700 times)

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #80 on: March 25, 2017, 01:33:34 pm
Sorry Jun, I just saw your comment, I didn't receive a notification about it so I haven't made the values darker yet. I was just dropping by to show the update.

I've decided to ditch the card system entirely. Too cumbersome and time consuming not to mention unnecessary. I've learned a lot from Super Toaster X in production so I don't end up overwhelmed with things to do. Keeping it simple is the motto here.

Using a book instead:


I modified the icons, except for the dwarf one which I like. The quill is used for selection. The icons on the left are the skill icons appearing in game. The page on the right displays the skill description.

Basically, which can use/can't use icons do you prefer? Circle? Cross? I put a few samples there.

Offline eishiya

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #81 on: March 25, 2017, 03:32:36 pm
I prefer the empty/filled circles, they read most immediately. The empty circle and checked circle also work. Some of the others are prettier, but don't read as well at a glance.

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #82 on: March 25, 2017, 07:11:58 pm
Alright.

So the concept I'm going for is to assign one type of action (attack, spell, defense) to each one of the controller button in the skill menu, sort of like this:



Pressing any button in battle will bring up the cross with the skills the players have selected. They can then select the skill they want by pressing the associated button.

The challenge I have is to have that cross appear without concealing what's happening in the game. In order to do that, I figured the only solution is to have it show up outside the window itself otherwise concealing information is unavoidable.



I'd rather have the icons show up on the screen but then part of the background would end up being concealed or tokens and that's be irritating.

The problem I have here is that I don't have the energy cost appear next to each skill off-menu and it's essential to have it. So that's where I'm at now, finding how to cram that information in.

Offline eishiya

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #83 on: March 25, 2017, 08:29:23 pm
If all of the characters have the same attack types and have to select the skills from a menu afterwards anyway, why even display it? For that matter, if there's still a menu to go through, why even waste four buttons on four menus anyway? If you have no better use for them, why not have three of them act as hotkeys that the player can assign, and one button (A) could open the full menu of all skills, which could have the skills sorted by type?

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #84 on: March 26, 2017, 12:31:47 pm
Quote
If all of the characters have the same attack types

Well, they don't. That's why I use the skill page which identifies who can and can't use certain skills.

Quote
If you have no better use for them, why not have three of them act as hotkeys that the player can assign, and one button (A) could open the full menu of all skills, which could have the skills sorted by type?

I want skill selection to be part of the challenge. In other words, I'm thinking the skills for each player to four.

Alright so I redid the floor and the walls which were bothering everyone for a while.

Here's a first mockup of how I'd like battle to look. It's still very bare bones at the moment but you get the idea. It's wrong though, I mean, the concept isn't to my liking yet. Not sure if the die cut it if presented that way:



And more experimentation with the inventory system:


And Chaos Warrior:




« Last Edit: March 26, 2017, 03:02:22 pm by Zizka »

Offline Cherno

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #85 on: March 26, 2017, 10:33:29 pm
The Chaos Warrior is heavily armored, so add at least one pixel thickness to arms and legs :)

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #86 on: March 27, 2017, 10:59:38 am


I redid the legs, sword and fist.


« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 12:08:07 pm by Zizka »

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #87 on: March 27, 2017, 12:11:50 pm
For the battle system, I'll need to make some changes. Having hearts on the side just isn't going to cut it. Tokens need to have important information right next to them so the player doesn't have to glance on the side of the screen. Also the four screens there on the side take a lot of room.

The problem is that I don't have a lot of room on-screen. My only option would probably be a segmented bar under the actual token:



I like the idea of having a bar which is the same length for everyone but separated in more increments depending on the health of the token.

I did 12 different versions. The red bar would represent health while the blue one energy. I find using vertical bars makes more sense as I have room on both sides of the tokens with very limited space under them.



I like the "L" shaped bars but it doesn't look quite right at the moment. If I can manage that I can get rid of the menus on the side and keep the whole thing cleaner.

Let me know what you think, your input is important!


Offline eishiya

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #88 on: March 27, 2017, 01:12:42 pm
Almost all of bars are hard to read, they're either rather busy or all blend together and don't give good info. I find myself counting those tiny highlights to count them because that's the only thing I can see distinctly, but it's unpleasant.
I mentioned bars with variable-length segments before as something I dislike because I find it hurts the player's ability to read the health at a glance. That's fine in a game where a single HP isn't like to mean life and death, but in a game like this, I find it important to be able to tell how much HP exactly a character has without counting the bars, and that's a lot easier if each HP is represented by identical, same-sized visuals across all characters.

I don't like the L-bars, since they require too much eye movement to read. Since you only have two bars, I think it'd be fine if they're both beneath the characters.

How will these health bars interact with units in front of them? I thought you mentioned that as a reason not to have health displayed under/over the units before.
I think as long as the characters' information is displayed in the same spot and not all over the screen (or all over one side of the screen), the glancing won't be an issue. Humans are fast at glancing, it's scanning that's slow.

Offline Zizka

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Re: Fantasy Miniatures

Reply #89 on: March 28, 2017, 11:09:07 am
Quote
Almost all of bars are hard to read, they're either rather busy or all blend together and don't give good info. I find myself counting those tiny highlights to count them because that's the only thing I can see distinctly, but it's unpleasant.
I mentioned bars with variable-length segments before as something I dislike because I find it hurts the player's ability to read the health at a glance. That's fine in a game where a single HP isn't like to mean life and death, but in a game like this, I find it important to be able to tell how much HP exactly a character has without counting the bars, and that's a lot easier if each HP is represented by identical, same-sized visuals across all characters.

That's true. Segmented bars probably wouldn't work here.

Quote
How will these health bars interact with units in front of them? I thought you mentioned that as a reason not to have health displayed under/over the units before.

That's before I realized... I need to display the health of enemies as well. I can display the information for players on the left side, sure, but what about the enemies? I don't want the players to have to select each enemy to find out how much health he has. That'd be stupid.

So I did some research and as it turns out, most games don't display the characters info on the action screen!:

Battle Ogre:


Final Fantasy Tactics:


Suikoden Tactics:


Disgaea is different as it displays the health as a bar, nothing precise.


I find Disgaea is superior in that aspect since you don't have to select a character to know its health.

So how about this:

The token gradually gets filled up with semi-transparent red as they're wounded. It wouldn't be super precise *but* it would give an idea to the player who could then go and check the precise health of the token he's interested into for gameplay reasons.

Something like this:
(uninjured)
(injured)

I feel like that'd be a good compromise. Moving the cursor to a selected token would then display the full information in the text area at the bottom for the player to see. Another solution would be to press a button for the health of everyone be displayed as numbers on top of the tokens as long as that button is pressed for quick info.

Regarding character sheet, I'm coming to terms that I'll need to use numbers for reasons both practical and aesthetic.

Aesthetic: wasted space. I end up with a lot of empty space because I need room in case the player improves his stats.


Pragmatic:
*There's also the point that was mentioned that certain stats can't go higher because there's no room on the sheet, like for the dwarf's health.

*There's also the problem of counting units which, like eishiya said, ends up being problematic. That can work for certain games but for something like tactical battle, it would become a chore to count little icons.

*Dealing with half units is bothersome. The wizard having only 2 health would cause trouble with grazing. If the smallest unit is half a heart, it still wouldn't take much for him to die. Low health also means instant kill which players likely won't enjoy.

I could of course use mechanics where damage taken is minimal but then it becomes a headache to factor in equipment see I have little to no room for stat variety.

So I'll have to switch to numbers. This will allow me to use my space more effectively, have player know instantly the info they're looking for and more freedom with combat design. I will want to keep numbers low however, there's a charm to it. I feel that using numbers breaks immersion more than icons for some reason as you go from graphical representation to numerical but that's unavoidable at that point.

Using bars for health would be overkill in that case though I find:


I think I'll just stick to numbers.