Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: wfzimmerman

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
If I go down 1 more font size (from 10 to 9), I'll be able to place "white space" around the text (e.g., paragraphs). That's pretty small though.

Please don't go lower than font size 10. It is harder for those of us whose eyesight isn't what it used to be (probably from reading too many documents in font size 8).
Flipper

Steve, can't you use tabs or spaces for paragraphing? no need to adjust font size.

Well, I have reached the following conclusions:
1 - Stay with font size 10
2 - Stay with Verdana font (because it is more legible than, say, Arial on a computer)
3 - Stay with 1024 by 768 pixels for the screen size
4 - Stay with 650 by 650 for the picture portion of the screen
5 - Maybe add another text panel at the bottom when the picture doesn't need the entire 650 by 650 allocated to it and more text description is needed

I like a blank line between paragraphs which has the bad effect of consuming a lot of space. Tabbed indentations for paragraphs is an option but it has to be enough to be visible as an indentation (e.g., 2 spaces wouldn't work) so that loses some space - but less than devoting a whole line to the paragraph.

I might use bullets in lieu of paragraphs. They would take less room than indentation and they are sort of appropriate, given that the text will almost always be making a series of points about the picture.

I am trying to avoid using more robust character renderings, like bold and underline, since they would likely overwhelm the small space available for text.

These are still early days for designing this and I appreciate all the comments/feedback. I'll try to do a couple more pages so we have nmore than 1 example to look at while figuring out what works best.

So here is another page of the tutorial (it is actually page 3). I think I will have to break down and start numbering the tutorials at 1 instead of 0 (and the programmer/mathematician in me shouts "Why?"). The paragraphing helps, and the simple blank line looks best. I'll just have to keep the text pithy. If I get a chance I'll post a couple more of these today.

One of the things that is a turn-off for me in a tutorial is when it shows you how to do things but doesn't tell you why you do it. Merely displaying the functions without detailing the reasons leave me guessing the flow of the game. i.e. War in the Pacific.

Hope that makes sense.

Mo Reb

And there I was thinking Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941. [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel
One of the things that is a turn-off for me in a tutorial is when it shows you how to do things but doesn't tell you why you do it. Merely displaying the functions without detailing the reasons leave me guessing the flow of the game. i.e. War in the Pacific.

Hope that makes sense.

Mo Reb

Yes. I have a long list of Do's and Don'ts for the tutorials that was developed for me by the forum members earlier this year.

Here's another draft page for the 1st tutorial.

I'm sorry if this sounds silly but here it goes. Mr. Okeets you really have a good handle on the wants and needs of computer gaming and I sure wish you a great deal of success in not only this project but in future ones too. There has not been one single aspect that has been discouraging as a prospective customer. That screen has a plethora of information. Man I am starting to sound like a Fanboy [&o] and that has never been the case before. Keep it up.


Mo Reb

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel
One of the things that is a turn-off for me in a tutorial is when it shows you how to do things but doesn't tell you why you do it. Merely displaying the functions without detailing the reasons leave me guessing the flow of the game. i.e. War in the Pacific.

Hope that makes sense.

Mo Reb

Yes. I have a long list of Do's and Don'ts for the tutorials that was developed for me by the forum members earlier this year.

Here's another draft page for the 1st tutorial.

Good. Works for me.

Only issue I see is that you don't have a full response to the issue? fact? that you can tell them to start with Barb and Guad as much as you want, but most people aren't going to play them more than 1x before plunging into Global War. The tutorial learning strategy needs to acknowledge that reality somehow.

Ok, I'll try to butress mt argument that they should play Barbaossa and Guadalcanal numerous times, before taking on Global War. My basic point will be that Global War takes a lot of time and effort and that if you do not know what you are doing, it will mostly be wasted time. I think the concept of strategic plans built on operational lpans, built on tactical expertise should be in there somewhere too.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Ok, I'll try to butress mt argument that they should play Barbaossa and Guadalcanal numerous times, before taking on Global War. My basic point will be that Global War takes a lot of time and effort and that if you do not know what you are doing, it will mostly be wasted time. I think the concept of strategic plans built on operational lpans, built on tactical expertise should be in there somewhere too.

Not quite my point. I emphasize that no matter what you write, people will quickly plunge into Global War. Better to accept that and focus your energy on setting their expectations, i.e.

1) you will probably lose badly
2) the game may seem very ahistorical
3) you may actually be steepening your learning curve

WHen I learn WW2 games, I usually just keep playing until I can achieve basic goals, like take Poland, knock out France in '40, etc.

ORIGINAL: wfzimmerman

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Ok, I'll try to butress mt argument that they should play Barbaossa and Guadalcanal numerous times, before taking on Global War. My basic point will be that Global War takes a lot of time and effort and that if you do not know what you are doing, it will mostly be wasted time. I think the concept of strategic plans built on operational lpans, built on tactical expertise should be in there somewhere too.

Not quite my point. I emphasize that no matter what you write, people will quickly plunge into Global War. Better to accept that and focus your energy on setting their expectations, i.e.

1) you will probably lose badly
2) the game may seem very ahistorical
3) you may actually be steepening your learning curve

WHen I learn WW2 games, I usually just keep playing until I can achieve basic goals, like take Poland, knock out France in '40, etc.

OK.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Ok, I'll try to butress mt argument that they should play Barbaossa and Guadalcanal numerous times, before taking on Global War. My basic point will be that Global War takes a lot of time and effort and that if you do not know what you are doing, it will mostly be wasted time. I think the concept of strategic plans built on operational lpans, built on tactical expertise should be in there somewhere too.

When I first learned WiF 15 years ago, we first played Barbarossa, once, and then Guadalcanal, once too, and then we went through our first 39-45 campaign.
This was only that that was interesting us.

Nowadays, when introducing new players to the game, we play Barbarossa and Guadalcanal once each and then we begin a 39-45 campaign telling everyone that we will stop the game anytime, that it is just a learning game, and then we play for real.

Using the computer game, with no counters to sort out, I would only play global war, each time, even to introduce new players. We would play only 2-3 turns of the beginning of the game. I would advice a lone player to play a couple of Barbarossa & Guadalcanal, and then to try Global Campaign.

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Ok, I'll try to butress mt argument that they should play Barbaossa and Guadalcanal numerous times, before taking on Global War. My basic point will be that Global War takes a lot of time and effort and that if you do not know what you are doing, it will mostly be wasted time. I think the concept of strategic plans built on operational lpans, built on tactical expertise should be in there somewhere too.

When I first learned WiF 15 years ago, we first played Barbarossa, once, and then Guadalcanal, once too, and then we went through our first 39-45 campaign.
This was only that that was interesting us.

Nowadays, when introducing new players to the game, we play Barbarossa and Guadalcanal once each and then we begin a 39-45 campaign telling everyone that we will stop the game anytime, that it is just a learning game, and then we play for real.

Using the computer game, with no counters to sort out, I would only play global war, each time, even to introduce new players. We would play only 2-3 turns of the beginning of the game. I would advice a lone player to play a couple of Barbarossa & Guadalcanal, and then to try Global Campaign.

Yes, I agree. However, mastering Barbarossa and/or Guadalcanal would make the player much stronger when he gets to Global War.

I also expect the other scenarios to get a lot more play in MWIF than they do over the board. A major drawback to the "late in the war" scenarios when playing over the board is separating out all the counters. It is easier to start Global War because there are vastly fewer counters on the map and some of the major powers are still inactive.

Now we're on the same page!

I agree that the scenarios will get more use in computer.   But it will still be 80% Global War.

Tutorial screenshots are lookin' good! And Steve, you might find it easier to appease your mathematician side if you understand that your tutorial numbering is using the set of whole numbers rather than the set of integers. That ought to keep it quiet, at least if my mathematical memory is still good enough to stretch back the ten years since we covered the definition of whole numbers in class.

Here are some screen shots similar to what I have shown before. The difference is that instead of hand loading each bitmap and text just for the screen shot, these are generated by the program itself. The bitmaps are on disk and the the text descriptions are in one large file. All the text is read in when the program is loaded but each page is parsed on the fly and the matching bitmap is fetched from the disk. The parsing of the text is the new part - indeed, the screenshots used for the bitmaps are out of date.

I have also made all the navigation buttons in the upper right corner work. You can change pages and tutorials effortlessly.

This may be by design, but the image showing the entire map does not show the entire planet.  Much of the Pacific is left out.
 
By the way -- GREAT WORK!

I had to shorten the space for the bitmap. It is now 650 wide by 640 high. Which is why the bottom of this bitmap is cropped too close.

Now that the system for presenting the tutorials is working, I expect to write 1 or 2 pages of the tutorials every day. There are a lot to do but I prefer to have a mix of tasks - continually programming (or even worse, debugging) can wear one's soul thin.

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

This may be by design, but the image showing the entire map does not show the entire planet.  Much of the Pacific is left out.

By the way -- GREAT WORK!

Thanks.

All the screen shot bitmaps for the tutorials are drafts. There will have to be final versions made just before game release. Until then, I'll probably only keep them up-to-date if the image gets out of sync with the text.

Here are the first 6 pages of the first tutorial. I want to eventually add another page about assigning or bidding for major powers. Though the bidding stuff might be left for the discussion of playing over the internet.