MWIF Game Interface Design

[wfzimmerman]

I don't understand what is going on with the colors & flags associated with each action section -- is the final set up screen going to have only one color scheme and one flag?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
I think the font size looks good on the screen shots, no need to increase it.

For the Start New Game form, the fonts are the way I want them (for the most part, touch-ups still needed in places). That's because I did not have to convert the labels etc to the new style. I do want to eventually convert the tabbed sections (Scenarios and Optional Rules). If I were to do that now, all the font sizes would be reduced to 8 pt Tacoma in black - for an example see the 2 previous screens.

In general, if the font looks good, it is because I did not convert the screen component to Theme Engine yet. It drives me nuts looking at the little fonts everywhere so I am holding off on converting components until I figure out how to control them when using Theme Engine.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wfzimmerman
I don't understand what is going on with the colors & flags associated with each action section -- is the final set up screen going to have only one color scheme and one flag?

No. What you see is what I intend (roughly) for the start screen. All the other screens/forms display only one color and flag at a time - the one for the major power "on move". The Opening Screen form and the Start New Game form are the only places where I am showing more than 1 major power color/flag at a time. I think of it as a sort of preview. It also lets you see the flags at their 'full' size.

CWIF had a sequence of forms for the player to fill out. Do the first and the second pops up. Do the second and the third appears. I found it unclear what was happening. It wasn't possible to go backwards either without starting all over. Instead I have chosen to place all those separate CWIF forms onto one form: the Start New Game form.

Now that creates its own set of problems: it's crowded and not real clear what the sequence for filling things in is.

I have split the form into sections related to each decision the player needs to make to start a new game: mode of play, scenario, optional rules, player names, and who is playing which major power. To make each section stand out as separate I decided to use different colors - and there are about 16 million from which to choose. The possible combinations for doing this are even larger. In my simple plebian approach, I elected to go with the colors for the major powers that Rob provided for the screen backgrounds. Mine are a comparable uniform color for each major power, while Rob's are patterned bitmaps that look much better. Then I threw in the flags because I like the flags.

This will let me write the help text for starting a new game by refering to the Optional Rules section (where the Japanese flag is located).

I want to revise the upper left corner of this form and have "what to do next" immediately under the "New Game Sequence" heading. basically I want a prompt up there giving the player advice about how to make his selections.

This whole page is still in flux. I welcome comments.

[Zorachus99]

In multiplayer games, will all the players on a side (Axis/Allied) be able to their moves based on the phase the game is in, or will they move out of concert?

My understanding of the RAW is the attacker chooses the sequence that battles are resolved... which means one player would be waiting on another to complete their action. Will all the players have to agree to end a phase before battles are initiated (proper sequence of play)?

[Missouri_Rebel]

My only comment is that it is looking great so far. Keep up with the fine work.

Will the country names be provided along with the flags for those of us not so worldly?

mo reb

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel
My only comment is that it is looking great so far. Keep up with the fine work.

Will the country names be provided along with the flags for those of us not so worldly?

mo reb

Thanks.

Yes if you look at the screen for scrapping units, at the top right is the German flag and to its left, the title says : Germany.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
In multiplayer games, will all the players on a side (Axis/Allied) be able to their moves based on the phase the game is in, or will they move out of concert?

My understanding of the RAW is the attacker chooses the sequence that battles are resolved... which means one player would be waiting on another to complete their action. Will all the players have to agree to end a phase before battles are initiated (proper sequence of play)?

The design for multiplayer over the Internet has one player for each side established as the "team leader". As players are moving their units (for example) the local MWIF program will record the move for the unit/unit stack as the player is moving it around. Once he drops it someplace, the set of hex-to-hex moves will be grouped into a 'transaction' and sent off to his team leader. The team leader's copy of the program will record all the transactions from all his team members as they come in ( he will also forward them to other members of his team) and once everyone on the side has indicated they have finished moving units, then the team leader will sent the whole mess off to the opposing team leader who will forward them off to the players on his side/team. There are other details I am leaving out here, but that is the gist of the process.

Announcing attacks, like moves, can be done in any order, mixing up different major powers. The sequence for resolving attacks will be under the control of the team leader - that is just to prevent anarchy. Hopefully everyone on a side can agree on the sequence. So, to answer your implied question, yes, you are going to have to wait while your ultra-careful teammate considers all the implications of each of the combinations and permutations of the order in which to perform attacks. Or you could insist on being team leader and then run roughshod over everyone's delicate sensitivities. Dealing with the social and political dynamics are pretty much out of scope for the MWIF code to my way of thinking. Not that I think they are unimportant - just out of scope.

I am trying to work out some way for a player to move his units 'conditionally' while the other side is on move. The idea here is you can shove your units around while waiting on the other side (perhaps they are deciding about CAP, for instance) and then when the other side says they are done, you can approve or cancel the 'conditional' moves you had previously entered. I have to figure out the mechanics of this for both the player interface and for storing the information internally. If I can get this to work, I am hoping that it will speed up play substantially - especially in 2 player games.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I am trying to work out some way for a player to move his units 'conditionally' while the other side is on move. The idea here is you can shove your units around while waiting on the other side (perhaps they are deciding about CAP, for instance) and then when the other side says they are done, you can approve or cancel the 'conditional' moves you had previously entered. I have to figure out the mechanics of this for both the player interface and for storing the information internally. If I can get this to work, I am hoping that it will speed up play substantially - especially in 2 player games.

This was exactly what I was fishing for. It would definitely be 'a nice to have' feature. I expect almost any game I play to be over the internet.

In real life I often plan to make a move, but because it's not my phase I wait, and during the appropriate phase I forget that 'one' move. Some way to plot movement/air missions for a future phase in the current impulse would be fantabulous. I'm trying not to get too greedy here

[Neilster]

Re the maps on the new game screen, It looks a bit better on a second look but the first time I saw it I couldn't work out what was going on (and I've played CWiF). It looked like it was Italy deciding something, that the French player was entering their name, that there were default selections for Russia and China and that the optional rules were only for Japan. I think it will confuse newbies.

The flags themselves look great but surely there will be ample opportunities to display them during intro screens/movie etc (perhaps fading in and out in turn with some dramatic music playing and grainy black and white footage of battle, refugees, production and animated arrows on maps etc being displayed). I think on this screen they add some colour but also a bit of confusion to an already complicated display.

Cheers, Neilster

[wfzimmerman]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

Re the maps on the new game screen, It looks a bit better on a second look but the first time I saw it I couldn't work out what was going on (and I've played CWiF). It looked like it was Italy deciding something, that the French player was entering their name, that there were default selections for Russia and China and that the optional rules were only for Japan. I think it will confuse newbies.

The maps themselves look great but surely there will be ample opportunities to display them during intro screens/movie etc (perhaps fading in and out in turn with some dramatic music playing and grainy black and white footage of battle, refugees, production and animated arrows on maps etc being displayed). I think on this screen they add some colour but also a bit of confusion to an already complicated display.

Cheers, Neilster

Massive ditto.

[Zorachus99]

1) Looking at the German setup page, visually my guess is you have clicked the all air units button... I don't see any sign you pressed that button. Can you have can the button darken if it is currently depressed?

2) Scrapping a unit is a one-way trip. The undo scrap buttons seem confusing, as it alludes to being able to undo a scrap that you've potentially done in a past turn. A warning that any unit scrapped cannot be unscrapped for the rest of the game might be nice since you are in this phase. This would apply similarly during the scrap air units phase during any standard turn.

3) The undo all function seems superfluous for scrapping because it is a relatively rare event. The undo all only applies to units shown? If it works I dont know if its worth wasting time removing. On average I scrap less than one unit a turn, except during setup, the Jan/Feb turn, or a destroyed unit which I dislike.

Othewise the form is very nice for your 1024x768 resolution.

Keep up the great work!

[Zorachus99]

On second thought an 'already scrapped' box would uncomplicate things.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

1) Looking at the German setup page, visually my guess is you have clicked the all air units button... I don't see any sign you pressed that button. Can you have can the button darken if it is currently depressed?

2) Scrapping a unit is a one-way trip. The undo scrap buttons seem confusing, as it alludes to being able to undo a scrap that you've potentially done in a past turn. A warning that any unit scrapped cannot be unscrapped for the rest of the game might be nice since you are in this phase. This would apply similarly during the scrap air units phase during any standard turn.

3) The undo all function seems superfluous for scrapping because it is a relatively rare event. The undo all only applies to units shown? If it works I dont know if its worth wasting time removing. On average I scrap less than one unit a turn, except during setup, the Jan/Feb turn, or a destroyed unit which I dislike.

Othewise the form is very nice for your 1024x768 resolution.

Keep up the great work!

1 - Yes. That's how the screen starts. I'll get the button to look depressed[:(].
2 - The scrapped units section only contains units that were just scrapped. Scrapped units from earlier do not appear anywhere on the form.
3 - When you decide whether to scrap a unit that was just destroyed the May Be Scrapped section contains just the 1 unit - no others. And in that case the Undo All button is not shown at all.


I think the documentation/tutorials on "scrapping obsolete units" should make the fact that it is permanent emphatically. Though I would sort of like to repeat it here, the form is very crowded already. Perhaps a popup help text message would suffice?

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
2 - The scrapped units section only contains units that were just scrapped. Scrapped units from earlier do not appear anywhere on the form.

This is something I like to review before making scrap decisions. Will there be an interface to show what has been scrapped so far? There are reasons to review them.
It's often the easiest way to find a unit that you plan to scrap simply by checking to see if it's already scrapped. Much easier than checking the units in play, the production spiral, and the construction pool.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Perhaps a popup help text message would suffice?

I would classify it as a low level want based on your description of the process, which seems very clear.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
2 - The scrapped units section only contains units that were just scrapped. Scrapped units from earlier do not appear anywhere on the form.

This is something I like to review before making scrap decisions. Will there be an interface to show what has been scrapped so far? There are reasons to review them.
It's often the easiest way to find a unit that you plan to scrap simply by checking to see if it's already scrapped. Much easier than checking the units in play, the production spiral, and the construction pool.

The top section of the scrap units form presents all the units that are eligible to be scrapped. It is filtered by unit type (air/land/naval) and can be filtered by subtype if you want.

For finding a unit that you plan to scrap, I think that works. If it were possible that the unit could have been already scrapped, and it isn't in that list, then it has already been scrapped.

Presenting units that have already been scrapped is available in another form (review of units, filter for scrapped units). Adding it to this form - which already has a lot of information - seems excessive.

[Froonp]

Here are two screen shots from the new interface using Theme Engine.

The places in the dialogs that are white (where text is written and counters shown), could be colored in the same color as the rest of the dialog (the color linked to the major power), but lighter and without skin effect.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Here are two screen shots from the new interface using Theme Engine.

The places in the dialogs that are white (where text is written and counters shown), could be colored in the same color as the rest of the dialog (the color linked to the major power), but lighter and without skin effect.

I still have a lot of work to do on the interface. And yes, changing the background color for text is one of them. Rob Armstrong (graphics artist) has provided a gray background and I have asked him for a lighter alternative. We'll mess around with it some more trying out different colors. Pure white is almost certainly not going to be the final background color for text.

I have figured out most of the Theme Engine capabilities (that I have any interest in) at this point and will not use how it handles text. That aspect of Theme Engine is unsatisfactory for a whole lot of reasons. Rob Crandall (Flashpoint Germany) has provided me with a list of other component packages he uses (4 or 5 in addition to Theme Engine) to build player interfaces. I will explore them next. I have one last aspect of Theme Engine to make operational first - hopefully that will be finished today. To some degree it is annoying that there isn't one software tool that lets you/me/everyone design a game interface completely. On the other hand, it's nice to have so many available from which to choose.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Why development takes so long.

Here is a screen shot of the problem I am currently trying to solve. There are 10 flags used in MWIF and you can see all 10 of them here. On the disk they are 24 bit color bitmaps of size 84 by 56 pixels and I have no trouble getting them to appear full size on the screen. Those are the large flags you can see on the bottom portion of the screen.

I have been trying to get them to appear 1/4 size (42 by 28) for the buttons at the top, and 7 out of 9 flags do that with no fuss or bother. But the Nationalist China and German flags do not cooperate. The China flag trades in its red color for transparency and the German flag seems to distort to 21 by 28 and center itself in the button. Now the code for handling all 9 flag buttons is identical (except for the names of the buttons). So, I try different incantations of code to achieve the same result, hoping that I can find one the does all 9 flags correctly. To my way of thinking, there is nothing wrong with the logic I am using, but there is something happening underneath (out of my sight) that makes China and German different. What the difference is and how to remove it is the problem.

There are literally hundreds of these things that pop up, sort of like pop quizzes in high school - totally unexpected and they have to understood and dealt with to succeed.

[JagdFlanker]

on sort of the same subject when i tried to make my own tabletop game a few years ago i came to sort of the same conclusion for a non-offensive flag german flag - except i preferred the one with the eagle on it. out of curiosity is the eagle considered offensive too?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

on sort of the same subject when i tried to make my own tabletop game a few years ago i came to sort of the same conclusion for a non-offensive flag german flag - except i preferred the one with the eagle on it. out of curiosity is the eagle considered offensive too?

Not to me, but I do not know official policy.

Your eagles look great here, but that requires fine detail. Most of the time the flags will be quite small and attempts to use fine lines turn the nice details into just a smudge.