Again I stopped dropping by when someone replies  .
That's the screen I dropped by to share:


You bring valid and interesting points, I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

I'm pretty much done with the rest of the game design and it has already been coded in or is in the process of being coded. Right now, the biggest challenge is the combat.

As you can see from the previous screens, I've thought about a lot of different design ideas for the combat. The game is meant to replicate 'fighting fantasy'/choose your own adventure books. So battle uses dice.

Recent changes I've made:
a. I've dropped the idea of using cards, too clunky and cumbersome.

b. I've replaced regular dice with various faces on the actual dice.

c. The player rolls the dice and checks the chart (like in the example) to determine the outcome of the round.

d. The player can choose to re-roll any dice at the cost of one energy. So the player can re-roll 2 for 2 energy and 4 for 4 and so on. This is a risk-reward feature, the player can decide to take a change and re-roll the result he got.

e. The player can re-roll as many times as he wants but each re-roll sequence costs +1 energy. So far example, if the player rolls: 4,4,3,2,2,1, he could choose to re-roll the '1' for 1 energy. If he then gets:
4,4,3,2,2,5 he could try again but this time it would cost 2 energy and so on. ( I used numbers here to make it simpler to explain but replace the numbers with pictures).

f. All the dice are identical but I'm having trouble deciding on which sides I want.

g. I know I want a neutral side which has no impact on the game which is the skull.

e. I know I want the noose which is the negative side. It prevents the player from re-rolling that dice.

f. This is where I'm stuck, I don't have anymore ideas for the other faces of the dice. I've asked around multiple forums but can't get any suggestions.

g. I'd like to replace numbers by pictures (hearts and bolts). As you can see, I've done some experimentation in this attempt at different layouts and concepts.

Maybe a devlog would help about this particular issue since there's a of information to process both regarding the art and the actual concept, I'll think about it.

1. Changed the general u.i. Monster and player both have a new spot in the book along with their health points.

2. Changed the energy and health logo for the player.

3. Drew a new logo for the enemy hp to fit with the chart.

4. At the moment, the left page feels too empty.

5. The possible roll outcome will now be displayed in green, it'll be up to the player to make the selection among what's available.

6. Moved everything to the left side to have some room for the dice on the right.

7. Cleanup the skull icon to make things less busy.

8. Changed the bindings in the middle to make them look better.

9. Moved the chart further to the right to avoid having the cursor in the middle of the book.

10. Added a coffee mug.

11. Made the first symbol, the bullet vest, for the dice.

12. Made the second symbol, energy.

13. Made the third dice, gun.

14. Made the fourth dice, noose.

15. Made fifth dice, horseshoe (for wild). Will likely change it later.

So I'm still looking for an icon for the sixth dice. Ideas?



The idea is that if you roll a minimum of 3 of a kind, you trigger the corresponding icon:

3x energy +5 energy
3x gun: trigger weapon damage bonus
3x bullet proof vest: prevent some damage based on the armor worn.
3x noose: this is the 'bad' roll since getting 3 of those doesn't trigger anything although it works normally for the chart.

the horseshoe is just a wild so having 3 of those doesn't trigger anything either.

I'm still missing one idea for the icon. So far I have:
Offense
Defense
Wild
'bad' roll
Energy
...
so the last one maybe could trigger a bad effect if you end up with 3x or more of it.

----

That's it for my notes for today.

First of all, thanks for the replies. For some reason I never receive a notice when I subscribe to a thread on pixelation so I was right to come and check if there were some replies.

I have since decided to make some drastic changes to the general presentation. Instead of creating a new thread I'll post my progress here since it's still to get design feedback. My questions no longer apply however but some of the feedback you've provided still does. If I had gotten a notice my approach would've been influenced my 'designing' but I had to go with my own ideas.

This being said, it's not necessarily a bad thing because I'm just getting into coding so there's nothing to be discarded.

Quick presentation:
This, I feel, is necessary in order to understand the design decisions.

The game I'm going for is essentially a gamebook where the player makes choices in a narrative. The player token moves on the map based on those decisions.

https://i.imgur.com/Kg66AzR.jpg
My source of inspiration (or just google 'Warlock of Firetop Mountain'

This means a lot of reading which is why you'll notice I've gotten rid of the notepad for a book. I showed that years ago so you might be familiar with it.

Current Design

How large is a screen, what is the resolution?

Since everything is small, I'm thinking to use a resolution of 960x720 and have the art magnified as x2. This would allow me for not everything to be so small.

Are the rooms going to typically fill the whole screen, be larger than a screen (requiring scrolling), or be much smaller than a screen as shown in the sample?

I'd want scrolling. The camera being centered on the player token. I think a screen would help:

This is an example where the player needs to make a choice for the story to progress. I'm not sure about the little scales there so I might remove them. Not sure about having the pen as a cursor appear in the middle of the book which doesn't seem like a good idea. If I put the cursor on the right, I'll need to constantly move it based on the text which will require more code. Also cursors on the right is rare.

Tabs
You'll notice the tabs on the left. From top to bottom on the left: story, inventory, status and combat. The idea is for the book to display different information depending on the tab which is selected.


In the image above, this is the main narration tab. I used to have some stickies on the right so the player always has information about its health but it doesn't look right which might be art related.

The information being displayed right now doesn't match the right tab, that's because I'm still WIP with all tabs pretty much so I keep changing my mind.

Regarding screen distribution, I feel like it's efficient like it is right now.

The issue I have is all the free space on both sides of the book which I find problematic. I'm not sure what I could put there. I was thinking of a table as if the book was on a desk or something but it would still technically "wasted" space.

So any ideas about what I could put on both sides? The game uses dice so I was thinking of having the dice rolling taking place there maybe instead of having the dice in the book. But in that case I feel like the dice and their results are far away from the content of the book. It makes the player look at different places in combat and that's not fun.

So that's about it, will keep checking the thread this time around (just checked and I did tick 'notify me of replies', weird!).

EDIT: @Mathcong: I like the idea of having health/energy in the upper left but since I need to fill up the space next to the book I need to find a way to fill up that space .

I need to find a way to stay in the 'pen and paper' theme here. Maybe I could have a notebook on the right for basic stats? I feel like this would be overkill to have both a book and a notebook though.

Hello everyone,
I'd like some suggestions and ideas about what I've already done. For those who've seen the padded cell I did, it's part of that map.


* The checkered floor is used as a reference. It doesn't show up in-game.
* The office is what I worked on the most.
* I'd like some ideas for the actual corridor. At the moment, I feel like it might be too wide to seem realistic.

I'm open to just about anything including good reference pictures which you personally found convincing.

Thank you!

Better?

If not, I'd be interested in some edits or some pixel art examples from another artist.