Player/status icon on map screen? Customizable inventories?

[michae...@gmail.com]

Two potentially quicker queries for the community.

Recent playtester feedback suggested interest in our better communicating the "what am I playing for?" and points/status/leveling-up/status as she earns points for doing mini-missions. Our playtester wanted to see her player status from the map screen as she goes along, much as one might see the clothing upgrade on one's player avatar in WOW or something. Is this possible? Are there folks who have coded for something like this--adding the Player icon along with the Menu, Zoom to Player, and Zoom to Extent icons? She wanted her player icon in the lower right, for example. Possible? Wish list as a Game Settings option?

Same playtester asked about if the Inventory can be rendered differently than a list? For our purposes, she had a good point. She wanted to sense that her inventory was incomplete by having grayed-out items she hadn't yet collected, for example, that would motivate further exploration. Has anybody done any JS work that allows for a visually more customizable inventory? Perhaps one that arranges items as tiles or hierachically on the order of an iPhone Photo Stream rather than in a list? I could imagine an inelegant workaround for our scenario where her inventory is stocked with grayed-out stuff at the get-go and this gets replaced later on with mission successes, so there is some traction on addressing this problem, but a more visual Inventory interface might also help for our purposes. She used the example of her "trophy shelf."

Two ideas for folks' input before I do some playing around at the edges of these issues over the next few days.

Cheers,

Michael Timm

[Christopher Holden]

AFAIK there isn't any past overlay experience with the player or game info over the map, though I could see it as possible. The player likely does not need the entire screen to navigate. It's funny, previous versions of ARIS had tabs at the bottom, so there was nav. stuff accessible but not exactly a HUD. My guess is that if we could design something like this in, it would work for authors somewhat like the current tab customization does.

For the inventory, there is not a turnkey solution, but your guesses are spot on. there are ways to do something of the sort with a bit of code. If you look for some of Charles' posts, he has designed various plaques and webpages to display parts of the player's inventory, even as a bar that is partially filled. In a simpler way, I would do exactly what you hint at: the inventory is a vertical shelf, so start of the game with greyed out items that eventually get replaced by the real thing. As you mention, the quests could also be used, and is customizable as a grid, and are even designed to have a before/after appearance. Note too that all of the tabs can be retitled and their icons customized, so if the metaphor of inventory or quest isn't the right word for your game, you can replace it with trophy case.

It's a bit of work to set up, but I think the effect would be quite good given your description. Is there something else about layout that you're looking for a way to do?

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[michae...@gmail.com]

Sorry for response delay. For some reason I don't get these emailed to me until I reply to a comment. Good suggestions. I haven't worked much with Quests, so I'll have to look at that before replying. Time was consumed by other projects this week. I think the Inventory/Quests stuff is tractable. I need to find Charles' posts, apparently, as that may be useful to us. Thanks.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 11:56:14 AM UTC-5, Chris Holden wrote:

AFAIK there isn't any past overlay experience with the player or game info over the map, though I could see it as possible. The player likely does not need the entire screen to navigate. It's funny, previous versions of ARIS had tabs at the bottom, so there was nav. stuff accessible but not exactly a HUD. My guess is that if we could design something like this in, it would work for authors somewhat like the current tab customization does.

For the inventory, there is not a turnkey solution, but your guesses are spot on. there are ways to do something of the sort with a bit of code. If you look for some of Charles' posts, he has designed various plaques and webpages to display parts of the player's inventory, even as a bar that is partially filled. In a simpler way, I would do exactly what you hint at: the inventory is a vertical shelf, so start of the game with greyed out items that eventually get replaced by the real thing. As you mention, the quests could also be used, and is customizable as a grid, and are even designed to have a before/after appearance. Note too that all of the tabs can be retitled and their icons customized, so if the metaphor of inventory or quest isn't the right word for your game, you can replace it with trophy case.

It's a bit of work to set up, but I think the effect would be quite good given your description. Is there something else about layout that you're looking for a way to do?

On Wed, Oct 12, 2016 at 10:45 AM, <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

Two potentially quicker queries for the community.

Recent playtester feedback suggested interest in our better communicating the "what am I playing for?" and points/status/leveling-up/status as she earns points for doing mini-missions. Our playtester wanted to see her player status from the map screen as she goes along, much as one might see the clothing upgrade on one's player avatar in WOW or something. Is this possible? Are there folks who have coded for something like this--adding the Player icon along with the Menu, Zoom to Player, and Zoom to Extent icons? She wanted her player icon in the lower right, for example. Possible? Wish list as a Game Settings option?

Same playtester asked about if the Inventory can be rendered differently than a list? For our purposes, she had a good point. She wanted to sense that her inventory was incomplete by having grayed-out items she hadn't yet collected, for example, that would motivate further exploration. Has anybody done any JS work that allows for a visually more customizable inventory? Perhaps one that arranges items as tiles or hierachically on the order of an iPhone Photo Stream rather than in a list? I could imagine an inelegant workaround for our scenario where her inventory is stocked with grayed-out stuff at the get-go and this gets replaced later on with mission successes, so there is some traction on addressing this problem, but a more visual Inventory interface might also help for our purposes. She used the example of her "trophy shelf."

Two ideas for folks' input before I do some playing around at the edges of these issues over the next few days.

Cheers,

Michael Timm

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[Christopher Holden]

I a side note just thinking through your description got me excited about making a game. I like the feeling of grayed out icons leading me to new action. 

I'd explain more about Google group settings for notifications but that looks a bit moot now. 

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