Topic Experiment: Interaction Menu
This board is threaded (i.e. has a tree structure). Please use the Reply button of the specific post you are referring to, not just any random button. If you want to reply to the topic in general, use the Post button near the top and bottom of the page.
In Response to Clonkonaut
After a release, it is time for experiments!
I collected some of the feedback we got for our newest release and am planning to do some testing around with various elements of the game.
This experiment is about the interaction menu. The feedback I collected revolves around how this menu is very distracting and very big. It essentially blocks out the main game and obscures anything going on behind it. People tend to strongly dislike it in Melee scenarios because you cannot spot enemies attacking you while going through an inventory. As described by B_E, it can also confuse you in a peaceful scenario because you don't see threats for your clonk.
I also realized that this menu uses the wooden decoration frame as opposed to all other GUI elements that are not dialogues. So I replaced the frame with something simple, golden. I am not fully happy with it yet, as there are problems (mainly the scripted GUI not respecting the space a frame takes up).
So, what did I do? Attached you find a scenario in which I drafted three styles of menus I came up with. You can open each one and compare.
Press E for the old style menu with a different frame. No major change here, except for the 'swap everything' icon which is also a suggestion:
Press R for a compact menu. With this one, I tried to shrink down various elements, to make it more compact and take up less size on the screen. Also, the background is mostly transparent, so you can still see what is going on.
Press T for a togglable/collapsable menu. The style is same as the compressed one but that is coincidental. This isn't something new per se as the old style menu also has a minimized version. The differences with this one are: the major structure of the menu doesn't change place, so you'll always know where it opens and when collapsed it only displays the contents and nothing else. Ideally, contents and other entries will be more visually separated. Maybe the 'Production' submenu will always be present when collapsed, as this and contents are the most frequently used ones. And of course, the collapse/uncollapse button should not move.
As to when it opens collapsed / not collapsed, there are several possibilities: Always collapsed when opened (as it is in the test scenario), double tap the button for uncollapsed opening, a per Scenario setting (distiction could be Mode Settlement/Melee), a per Player setting or a per Object setting.
Incidentally, this menu when uncollapsed also is an example of the compressed menu style but covering more display area.
Of course these styles are not yet fully fleshed out, so no need to nit-pick any small errors like overlapping elements. I wanted to get feedback before putting too much effort into this so it won't be wasted. I have also taken the time and separated the menu creation from the interaction menu's script to support different styles. We could therefore have several different styles and leave the decision to the players.
The scenario can be tested with 8.0/8.1 so no need to download a snapshot.
I collected some of the feedback we got for our newest release and am planning to do some testing around with various elements of the game.
This experiment is about the interaction menu. The feedback I collected revolves around how this menu is very distracting and very big. It essentially blocks out the main game and obscures anything going on behind it. People tend to strongly dislike it in Melee scenarios because you cannot spot enemies attacking you while going through an inventory. As described by B_E, it can also confuse you in a peaceful scenario because you don't see threats for your clonk.
I also realized that this menu uses the wooden decoration frame as opposed to all other GUI elements that are not dialogues. So I replaced the frame with something simple, golden. I am not fully happy with it yet, as there are problems (mainly the scripted GUI not respecting the space a frame takes up).
So, what did I do? Attached you find a scenario in which I drafted three styles of menus I came up with. You can open each one and compare.
Press E for the old style menu with a different frame. No major change here, except for the 'swap everything' icon which is also a suggestion:
Press R for a compact menu. With this one, I tried to shrink down various elements, to make it more compact and take up less size on the screen. Also, the background is mostly transparent, so you can still see what is going on.
Press T for a togglable/collapsable menu. The style is same as the compressed one but that is coincidental. This isn't something new per se as the old style menu also has a minimized version. The differences with this one are: the major structure of the menu doesn't change place, so you'll always know where it opens and when collapsed it only displays the contents and nothing else. Ideally, contents and other entries will be more visually separated. Maybe the 'Production' submenu will always be present when collapsed, as this and contents are the most frequently used ones. And of course, the collapse/uncollapse button should not move.
As to when it opens collapsed / not collapsed, there are several possibilities: Always collapsed when opened (as it is in the test scenario), double tap the button for uncollapsed opening, a per Scenario setting (distiction could be Mode Settlement/Melee), a per Player setting or a per Object setting.
Incidentally, this menu when uncollapsed also is an example of the compressed menu style but covering more display area.
Of course these styles are not yet fully fleshed out, so no need to nit-pick any small errors like overlapping elements. I wanted to get feedback before putting too much effort into this so it won't be wasted. I have also taken the time and separated the menu creation from the interaction menu's script to support different styles. We could therefore have several different styles and leave the decision to the players.
The scenario can be tested with 8.0/8.1 so no need to download a snapshot.
Powered by mwForum 2.29.7 © 1999-2015 Markus Wichitill