Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

A forum for discussing potential mobile/cross platform ports of the Drakkar Client
Brad
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Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Goal: Get rid of some of the complexities that would make use of a simplified interface challenging:

Thoughts ( Just my first two )

1) Coins
- Have coins auto transfer to your sack when you loot
- Remove encumberance for coins

2) Hands
- Remove the need for transfers to go THROUGH your hands

Question : would this mess anything up in the game? I think we had both of these in Drakkar 2.. i can't see a downside. the concepts are old school 1980s mmo based, and clearing these up would make the interface 1000 times easier to write. ( You could just click on an item and select a destination )

Brad

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

I don't think it would mess anything up, the main use of the hands in drakkar was to wield weapons/shield, steal/mug and to perform a check for a certain item in hand to allow access to a certain area,
you could always have an equipment pane with a weapon/shield slot added into it, i'll show a quick picture to illustrate

Image

as for stealing/mugging, im sure you can have the stuff stolen go right to the inventory, same with check access items.
also allow the weapon/shield slot to hold any item (like the hands can) for when the player is doing a quest that upgrades an item ect

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Ichor
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Ichor »

This would affect the concept of IHing.

What I mean by this is currently you need to belt or drop something if your hands are full, in order to get the IH from your sack and drink it.

Double click the IH in sack to drink it? You wouldn't want to do that with every bottle type though, even IHs.

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Wolverine2 »

Long shot here as far as IH goes, but just an idea (don't put down, just sparking other ideas!) but a button that auto drops offhand and drinks IH...but does NOT pick shield back up, that a player has to do... gives it so you still drop defense for a few rounds in exchange for health... just 2 less actions to go through

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Merlin
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Merlin »

remove the need for coins to be in sack, make everything straight from bank.
Elessar: karbeck is a sweety

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Ichor
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Ichor »

Skipping hands would also need to change the sense discipline as well as setting a twig.

I like Merlin's idea of coin going to and from the bank account directly!

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

IH: What about a command that just finds an IH, drink it, and destroys the bottle automatically? Do we REALLY need the "deadly i screwed up" game mechanic anymore? Does that really add that much to drakkar?

SENSE: Maybe sense should work from any slot. May not be a day one addition, but i could look into it.

I was thinking of making the interface use the radial menu concept.


DROP
SENSE (item Icon) SELL
BREAK


Something like that when you clicked on the item?? Elements could change based on where the item was, etc. I just can't imagine drag and drop being viable.


DIRECTFROMBANK: Coins arent really in your sack anyway.. thats just the mechanic. I think maybe just picking coins up automatically should "add" them to your collection.

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Hawk409 wrote:I don't think it would mess anything up, the main use of the hands in drakkar was to wield weapons/shield, steal/mug and to perform a check for a certain item in hand to allow access to a certain area,
you could always have an equipment pane with a weapon/shield slot added into it, i'll show a quick picture to illustrate

Image

as for stealing/mugging, im sure you can have the stuff stolen go right to the inventory, same with check access items.
also allow the weapon/shield slot to hold any item (like the hands can) for when the player is doing a quest that upgrades an item ect
Okay hawk how did you make those circles go over new areas of the picture? I'm so blasted graphically challenged.

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Ichor
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Ichor »

Brad wrote:IH: What about a command that just finds an IH, drink it, and destroys the bottle automatically? Do we REALLY need the "deadly i screwed up" game mechanic anymore? Does that really add that much to drakkar?

SENSE: Maybe sense should work from any slot. May not be a day one addition, but i could look into it.

I was thinking of making the interface use the radial menu concept.


DROP
SENSE (item Icon) SELL
BREAK


Something like that when you clicked on the item?? Elements could change based on where the item was, etc. I just can't imagine drag and drop being viable.


DIRECTFROMBANK: Coins arent really in your sack anyway.. thats just the mechanic. I think maybe just picking coins up automatically should "add" them to your collection.
IH - I don't have a problem with your proposal. Need to think about the other items being used for healing, i.e., breads and multi-dose pots, mend pots.

Sense - Your idea works well for ments. Have to consider the classes that currently need to hold a sense ring or scroll for sensing. Where would that sensing item need to be? Just anywhere in inventory? Would also want to be able to sense items in sack/belt/pouch since you wouldn't want to have to take an item off the ground and wear it in order to sense it. Consider sensing ground items? That negates the game concept of an item tying to you when you pick it up to sense it. Is that ok? Maybe.

I think you're right about drag and drop. Tap and choose from a menu would have to be really quick for the fast alts.

Directfrombank - Need to consider multiple player interactions here. Taking SOME coin from the ground instead of all. Does anybody split their coins that way anymore? Giving some coin from your sack/collection to another player.

Can you set up auto-banking transfers to tithe guild members to a guild account? :lol:

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

Brad, I opened the image in photoshop, drew a circle with a diameter of 66pixels using the shape tool, then added a bevel
(inner bevel, smooth, size of 4px, angle of 45 degress, changed highlight mode to Linear light)
used a grey color for the circle (in rgb would be R:205, G: 205, B: 205)
after that i placed it where i wanted then lastly changed the opacity to 60%.

if you have the original image without the other gear slots, you could arrange them in anyway you like, or send that original image to me and i'll add it for you :)

Brad
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Hawk409 wrote:Brad, I opened the image in photoshop, drew a circle with a diameter of 66pixels using the shape tool, then added a bevel
(inner bevel, smooth, size of 4px, angle of 45 degress, changed highlight mode to Linear light)
used a grey color for the circle (in rgb would be R:205, G: 205, B: 205)
after that i placed it where i wanted then lastly changed the opacity to 60%.

if you have the original image without the other gear slots, you could arrange them in anyway you like, or send that original image to me and i'll add it for you :)
Ooookayy.. now i know why i suck at that stuff. Okay, i'm gonna hit you up for some artwork soon ( smile ).

Ideas on radial menus for items? Thats what i'm looking into.. center point is the item, 64x64 item.. surrounded by a radial menu of elements.. like DROP, WEAR, EXAMINE, etc.. ( context sensitive.. basically 6 positions maybe?? and the 6 elements would be loaded based on the container the item is in ? )

Brad

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

so something along the lines of this for a radial menu?
Image

of course it could be far more fancy, any idea of a size in mind? atm the one in that image has a diameter of 128 (2 times an items size), then the hollow cutout has a diameter of 64
with a small cross in the center (so the player knows thats the item the menu opened on?)

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Haha SOOO much better than the text versions i just did.

Very good size also. About what i was shooting for.

Can you cut those up for me ? You can keep them all on one sheet, but put the UP state beside the DOWN state for the top, then the UP state and the DOWN state for the NE, then the UP state and the DOWN state for the EAST, etc. Use alpha channel = 0 for mask pixels, alpha = 255 for others.

Also, lets try the goldish color and see how that works... I think i've been using RGB=0xD7B74C for a lot of the gold.

Try to keep the distances uniform if you can also, and take the words off for now. I'll see if i can get them in !

Thanks
Brad

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

3 styles to it,
first has a slight stroke outline ( i left it greyish)
second has no stroke outline
third i threw a marble texture on it to see how it would look.
each tile is 64x64, "docked" in the nw corner (0,0) coord.

if you need the coords of each tile listed i can do that, also if you want the original saved photoshop file, i can send that aswell

let me know if there alright

Image

Direct link:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7536/radialsfinal.png

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Wow, you rock. Let me look at importing those.

One thing, remember mobile devices don't have anti aliasing, so we may need to play with the edges a bit.

Thanks!

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

Yes I thought about the edges when making those, but I wasn't sure if you wanted partly transparent pixels or not, so I made sure the pixel was either alpha 255 or 0.
transparent pixels would help alot with edges, so let me know if thats an option

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Yeah, please feel free to play with the alpha on the edges. I'm implementing the format you gave me so swapping it out shouldnt be that difficult.

Also, how do you feel about having N/S/E/W ( Up arrow, Down Arrow, East arrow, West arrow ) that are thumb size.. wonder how that would work.

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

The arrows as in when you press the arrow keys, the foot prints come up?

All on one sheet, all 64x64 tiles, all "docked" at the nw corner pixel
Image
direct link: http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/7683 ... rows01.png

Arrows on their own sheet, all 64x64 tiles, all "docked" at the nw corner pixel
Image
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/1155/arrows01.png

Radials on their own sheet, all 64x64 tiles, all "docked" at the nw corner pixel
Image
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/8227/radials01.png


preview of thier grid so you can visualize how i organize them.
Image

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Great. love that..

Thanks for showing me the grid also. that helps fix another issue.

Have radial menus up now on items. Dont do anything of course yet. haha

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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Great grid.. but you forgot down states for the arrows ( smile ).. Can you reorg the grid with the depressed state beside the up state? like you did with the other buttons?

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

:)
Yup, i'll get right on that, wasn't sure if you wanted down state for the arrows or not, i'll have them here shortly, if there is anything else that could be changed to make it easier to use, let me know

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »


Brad
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Brad »

Looks like you forgot the down state for the first column in all cases.

?

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Hawk409
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Re: Game Simplification for Mobile/Tablet

Post by Hawk409 »

yes how did I not see that, think it got cut when I resized it, one sec


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