FreeGameDev

Polishing

Here are some comments suggestions regarding the polishing of the game, as of 0.5 RC.


First, about the winning screen. The winnin


Bad:
- The winning screen overall feels a bit bland.
- No sounds, effects or anything exciting
- Game always shows you the highest medal earned in this level so far, not the medal actually matching your run
- Every relevant information is small

Suggestions:
- If you improved your time or recordings, display “New best time” or “New best recordings” and/or an appropriate indicator (except on first win)
- Also display your previous best time and/or recordings when you improved them
- Highlight the time/recordings count if they have beaten the time/recordings goal
- Show BIG medal in center (+medal name) which is the medal of your run
- Also display your current best medal (for comparison)
- Add button to load last save slot
- Make the “F3” key work in this screen
- Play cool sound for each medal

The general idea here is this: The biggest focus should be on the medal, time and recordings of THIS run, while the other information is in a bit smaller font. The most relevant info should be easy visible.


Level selection menu:
It's fairly decent as it is right now, simple and does the job. It still might benefit from some improvements:

- Make level tooltip display level preview
- Also add medal goals in tooltip (if there are any), just like in the bottom right
- If your best time/recordings have beaten the goal, highlight them somehow (by icon, color, background color, etc.)
- Add an indicator to show whether a level set is an add-on or official



Feel free to post your own remarks on polishing.

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback!

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Bad:
- The winning screen overall feels a bit bland.
- No sounds, effects or anything exciting
......

Suggestions:
......
- Highlight ...
- Show BIG medal in center (+medal name) which is the medal of your run
...
- Play cool sound for each medal

In my opinion these are a little bit not fit to the calm style of the game. (I don't quite understand which highlight style you are mentioned, though)

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:Bad:
- Game always shows you the highest medal earned in this level so far, not the medal actually matching your run
- Every relevant information is small

Suggestions:
- If you improved your time or recordings, display “New best time” or “New best recordings” and/or an appropriate indicator (except on first win)
- Also display your previous best time and/or recordings when you improved them
- Highlight the time/recordings count if they have beaten the time/recordings goal
- Show ... which is the medal of your run
- Also display your current best medal (for comparison)

I think these are reasonable. It will be best if you can come up with some sort of mockups . I remembered that were are some mockups for current level winning screen on the forum (or on the Wiki), you can try to find them.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- Add button to load last save slot
- Make the “F3” key work in this screen

I think I'll make F3 work before V0.5, but for the button maybe next release.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:- Make level tooltip display level preview
- Also add medal goals in tooltip (if there are any), just like in the bottom right

Maybe this will make the tooltip a bit noisy And the level preview is hard to implement IMO.

In my opinion these are a little bit not fit to the calm style of the game.

Well, some sound is better than no sound in my opinion. Use a calm sound then. :P

(I don't quite understand which highlight style you are mentioned, though)

Possible ways to highlight text:
Different text color.
Bold font.
Different text background color.
Add special icon next to time/recordings count, like a check mark, star or something else.


EDIT:
One annoying/confusing thing about add-ons screen: The screen turns completely dark for a while (probably while connecting to the Internet?). There should be some kind of message (like “Loading”) or some simple loading animation (like in Firefox) so the player knows the game did not freeze.

EDIT 2:
When you finish a level, the text at the top part of the screen is too close to each other, almost touching. There should be a bit more space between the lines. This is not noticalbe in English, but in German because the word “Abgeschlossen” has the letter “g” which goes below the baseline.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:One annoying/confusing thing about add-ons screen: The screen turns completely dark for a while (probably while connecting to the Internet?). There should be some kind of message (like “Loading”) or some simple loading animation (like in Firefox) so the player knows the game did not freeze.

This is unfortunately hard to fix, since currently the downloading code is synchronous. Maybe I will try to implement an asynchronous downloading code in next version.

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:When you finish a level, the text at the top part of the screen is too close to each other, almost touching. There should be a bit more space between the lines. This is not noticalbe in English, but in German because the word “Abgeschlossen” has the letter “g” which goes below the baseline.

OK, will fix it before V0.5.

This is unfortunately hard to fix

I think this is an easy fix? Just render the word “Loading ...” before you start to connect to the Internet? This word also appears when you start the game, so string freeze is preserved.
You can still go asynchronous later.

More ideas for graphical improvements:

- Switches that only turn on or turn off a certain thing should look different. Like a wall button, a doorbell or something. Making them look like a switch doesn't really make sense because they do not toggle.
- Teleporters that do not actually teleport you should have no / a different “teleporter halo”. And the tooltip text which appears when you are above it should be changed accordingly
- Teleporters that instantly teleport you when you enter them should look different. Maybe like a wormhole?

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:More ideas for graphical improvements:

- Switches that only turn on or turn off a certain thing should look different. Like a wall button, a doorbell or something. Making them look like a switch doesn't really make sense because they do not toggle.
- Teleporters that do not actually teleport you should have no / a different “teleporter halo”. And the tooltip text which appears when you are above it should be changed accordingly
- Teleporters that instantly teleport you when you enter them should look different. Maybe like a wormhole?

These are discussed in here. Unfortunately this also requires artists . You can use the custom appearance for blocks to accomplish this, it's not automatic, though.

Small suggestion: In the level selection screen, display a medal next to the name of the level pack if all levels have been completed: gold = all levels at gold. silver = all levels at silver or better. bronze = all levels at bronze or better. The medal shall be placed at a fixed position left to the “<” (left arrow) of the level pack name. This medal is called the “level pack medal”. Rationale: This is simply meant as a lightweight visual aid when you click through the level packs.

Another suggestion (not small): Add a screen with a list of all level packs. You can open this screen from the level selection screen. Maybe by clicking on the level pack name itself, and/or by some button somewhere.

In this list, display all level packs in a table-like format with the following columns:

- Level pack medal, if one was obtained. Otherwise, this column is empty.
- Level pack name
- Number of levels
- Number of gold, silver, bronze medals

(Maybe:) At the bottom, display the total number of levels and medals.

This will make it very convenient to view your overall progress in the game at a glance. This feature will become more relevant when more and more level packs are released.

Hi! I have made some new teleporter images for Cloudscape.

Basically I just changed the “teleporter glow” and color-coded it:

White (already included in the theme): Non-automatic teleporter, functional
Cyan: Automatic teleporter, functional (insta_tele.png)
Light red: Dysfunctional teleporter (no destination set) (dest_tele.png). Animation has been removed.

These images are meant to be optional. For themes without these images, the game should just fall back to the default “white” teleporter image.

Good idea

Since cloudscape is monochrome except for the door unlocking thingies, there could be some other solution though. Maybe make one of them more grainy?

Light red: Dysfunctional teleporter (no destination set) (dest_tele.png). Animation has been removed.

I'm not sure about this. It allows player identify dysfunctional teleporters without entering them.

Oh, so they are meant to be sneaky? Nevermind, then.

Here's my rationale: The player will figure out which teleporters don't work eventually anyway just by trial-and-error. No thinking or skill required, just work. So might as well give the player this info “for free”.

We could also leave this up to the level designer. I guess the question here is - do we want remembering with teleporter does what to be part of our puzzles? If yes, keep things as they are. If no, use the new designs.

I'd be happy either way.

I definitely want new images for insta-vs-non-insta teleporters. It's just annoying otherwise to get surprisingly insta-teleported. The level “Diamond” in Cooperation is a good example where it is definitely benefitial to mark the insta-teleporters. There are some teleporters in mid-air.

I also prefer the red teleporter for teleporters without target, but I have weaker feelings about this.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave this decision up to the level designer. This would mean the colors are basically useless since we allow to overwrite their meaning. Don't make the game more complicated for no reason!

My opinion is use the images for insta-vs-non-insta teleporters. As for the dysfunctional teleporter, I prefer to reveal it after your first attempt to enter it.

I also like the idea of GunChleoc, i.e. don't use too saturated images for Cloudscape theme (so we need an artist to draw them XD )

I think insta vs. non-insta could be a good idea. This would avoid some tomato surprises.

New suggestion for behavior of broken automatic teleporters. I know you discarded my previous suggestion, so I modify it a little:

When the player FIRST touches an automatic broken (=no destination) teleporter, make the same effect as for a failed teleport (failure sound, teleporter turns into “broken” state, i.d. turns red and gets special tooltip message). But only once! Once the teleporter is visibly in “broken” state, there are no more automatic attempts. So this avoids the problem of infinite failure sounds.