MWIF Game Interface Design

[composer99]

The screenshots themselves look pretty good; but the CVs look like their classes are two sizes too big across the board.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

The screenshots themselves look pretty good; but the CVs look like their classes are two sizes too big across the board.

A keen eye, but the carriers are correct.

The turn is May/Jun 1944 and the optional rule for carrier planes is not being used. That means the carriers have had their class numbers increased twice to reflect their improved capabilities over time.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

For information about the weather, I have combined two CWIF forms into one. It just makes more sense to me to always see these together.

Here is the first impulse of the Day of Infamy scenario.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Second and last in series.

And here is the first impulse of the Lebensraum scenario.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I have finally gotten back to the form that displays the sequence of play and where the game/player currently is in the sequence of play. It will probably take me the rest of the day to get this form to display correctly for all the different air missions and combat subphases. But I thought I would let you see where I am so far.

The left column of the Sequence of Play form is always the same.

The position of the second column's top will vary. Here it is all the way to the top because the Stage/First Column is New Game.

The flag indicates that Lend Lease is being done by Nationalist China. All 5 of the Allied major powers decide, then the Axis major powers will get their turn to do lend lease.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Second in serie. Here all players have completed Lend Lease and the Nationalist Chinese are deciding about scrapping units.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd and last in series. Here the Nationalist Chinese have finished scrap and setup and the Commnist Chinese have finished scrap. The CC are in the process of setting up their units - note the different flag.

[meisterchow]

Very nice.  I think you're doing a phenomenal job of presenting all the information in a coherent way.  How useable it is in an actual game will have to wait until I get my grubby little hands on it.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Rob has created new borders for the forms so there are no longer any transparent portions. This lets the player nest the forms tightly together.

Here is a screen shot showing a bunch of forms visible at the same time.

My cartesian mind likes these ones much than the older ones.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

For information about the weather, I have combined two CWIF forms into one. It just makes more sense to me to always see these together.

Here is the first impulse of the Day of Infamy scenario.

Very good change you did here.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I have finally gotten back to the form that displays the sequence of play and where the game/player currently is in the sequence of play. It will probably take me the rest of the day to get this form to display correctly for all the different air missions and combat subphases. But I thought I would let you see where I am so far.

The left column of the Sequence of Play form is always the same.

The position of the second column's top will vary. Here it is all the way to the top because the Stage/First Column is New Game.

The flag indicates that Lend Lease is being done by Nationalist China. All 5 of the Allied major powers decide, then the Axis major powers will get their turn to do lend lease.

Good job again !!! Wow, this day is a good day !
As an improvement, why not have the box with the current step of phase highlighted with another color, or with bold text ? The flag of the country would simply be at the bottom next to the help button.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I have finally gotten back to the form that displays the sequence of play and where the game/player currently is in the sequence of play. It will probably take me the rest of the day to get this form to display correctly for all the different air missions and combat subphases. But I thought I would let you see where I am so far.

The left column of the Sequence of Play form is always the same.

The position of the second column's top will vary. Here it is all the way to the top because the Stage/First Column is New Game.

The flag indicates that Lend Lease is being done by Nationalist China. All 5 of the Allied major powers decide, then the Axis major powers will get their turn to do lend lease.

Good job again !!! Wow, this day is a good day !
As an improvement, why not have the box with the current step of phase highlighted with another color, or with bold text ? The flag of the country would simply be at the bottom next to the help button.

I'll wait until after I have posted some examples from later in the sequence of play. I think you will find the highlighting unnecessary.

And, ...

Changing the colors for the 'selected' phase/subphase gets a little complicated since I am using the theme colors. I have never worked out a reverse font & background color set for each major power. And I think simply switching the two colors is likely to over-emphasize things, or make them difficult to read (e.g., USA green font on a white background, German gray font on a black background).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is an example of the sequence of play form when Germany is performing a port attack.

I think it is pretty clear that this is Germany's Perform Mission subphase of the Port Attacks phase in the Naval Stage of the impulse. The last piece of information is because Naval is in between New Impulse and Impulse End.

[christo]

How are night fighters being displayed?
I note on post 1260 (UK) that the BP Defiant (and ? Mosquito XIX) appear the same as regular fighters.

Christo

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: christo


How are night fighters being displayed?
I note on post 1260 (UK) that the BP Defiant (and ? Mosquito XIX) appear the same as regular fighters.

Christo

It depends on whether that optional rule was selected. If it isn't, then they are shown are'normal' fighters. If the optional rule is on, then they appear as they do in the printed counters. This also applies to Twin engine fighters and the combination of the two optional rules: both off, one on, both on, - which can produce 4 different images on the screen for a single Twin engine night fighter.

[christo]

thanks

[Shannon V. OKeets]

There was a request to see a comparison of the 8 levels of zoom. I tried to do that all on one page but it exceeded the limit on picture size in this forum. So I broke it into 2 parts. Here are zoom levels 8, 7, and 6.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are zoom levels 5, 4, and 3. For these I used the high resolution images for the units.

My choice of screen size was 1/4 of a 1078 by 768 screen. What that means is that using the minimum size monitor for MWIF (1024 by 768):
- at zoom level 8, you can see as much of the map as is shown here at zoom level 4.
-at zoom level 6 you can see as much of the map as is shown here at zoom level 3.
- at zoom level 4, you can see as much of the map as is shown here at zoom level 2 (next post).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd and last in the series. Here are zoom levels 1, 2, and 3.

All of these use medium resolution for unit depictions. If you compare the Zoom 3 here to the zoom 3 immediately above, you can see the change from high resolution unit graphics to medium. Once you become familiar with the symbology, zoom 3 should be a quite viable level for game play, using the medium resolution graphics.

Note that at zoom 4 all the information on the counters and map are quite legible and the portion of the map you will have visible is comparable to the screen shot shown here at zoom 2: about half of England, France, and Germany.

Oh, and if your eyes are good enough to see the units at zoom level 2, then the portion of the map you can review is comparable to what is shown here at zoom level 1: all of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

[Neilster]

Jeez the black railways look good. Why...they even look like railways and not something one would pick up from eating improperly cooked pork [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster