Sep
23
Submitted by Marco on Wed, 09/23/2009 - 19:22
A relatively small update:
* I made it so that items labelled "hidden_whatever" now actually do hide. They don't give a clue as to the fact that they are clickable, other than whatever you choose to put in the action text. An example of that is actually here: http://www.fableforge.org/game/foobar-eboy-i-spy-sort-game
* I made it so there are now three different kinds of mouse pointers, depending on the action they execute. You don't have to set them up; they work automatically based on this criteria:
- If executing the action leads the player to a new scene (navigation) the mouse pointer turns into a sort of arrow.
- Else, if executing the action results in no new keys whatsoever (exploration), the mouse pointer turns into a sort of magnifying-glass doodle.
- Else, the mouse pointer its an asterisk (interacting), meaning that either something happens (you get keys) or the star shows up after executing the action.
In going with the fountain-pen-scribbled look, the pointers look scribbled. If you find them ugly let me know, or even better: make new ones and I'll take a look :)
Other aesthetic improvements:
* Intro cinematics no longer hide the loading bar.
* All text in the "eyebox" area of the interface is now "glowy".
* Minor minor enhancements here and there; I even forgot :)
Coming soon: a way for you to embed games in your own websites!
Thanks for everything so far, please ask away for anything, any reason. Helping make a game and playing it would positively make my day, believe you me.
17 comments
On the topic of aesthetics...
On the topic of stuff like mouse cursors... would it be possible to include some way to customize those in a future version? I don't think there's anything wrong with the cursors you have included, but with different settings and genres it might be nice if the author could supply new cursors.
I have a similar feeling about fonts; you have a good theme going for Scavenger stuff, but choice of typeface can have a big effect on the mood of the game so some people might want to change them.
Again, I like your existing mouse cursors and fonts. I'm just mentioning this as a suggestion. If I could change the cursors and fonts for my game, I definitely would; I just like to match things like that to the theme of my game. On the other hand, I think most people are probably happy to use the default ones.
Very good point
You know, you're right. At the very least I should provide a choice of "themes", where each theme would count for at least three elements: the text for in-screen things (currently a handwritting font) the text for the Adventure log (currently "Old Typewritter") and the icons (currently "hand drawn").
Maybe... you could have a drop down under Scene Options to let you choose which theme you want to use. And whatever you choose in the first scene, would be the default for all others. Yes yes.
You've given me a good project, sir. This will happen :)
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
You need any hand on the
You need a hand on the themes(cursors, skins, maybe have one theme include a stained layer that goes over everything) just gimme a shout, I'll be happy to whip something up.
Actually yes!
Oh man, you're too cool for school. Yes, I'd love it if you could make some more cursors for the themes.
I plan to have four themes:
1.- The "Spooky" theme, which is the current one right now. It uses handwritten font for things in-screen and typewritter for the adventure log, and handdrawn pointers.
2.- A sci-fi theme. Maybe you could suggest two fonts to use? For in-screen things (replacement for the handwritten one right now) it doesn't need to be -too- legible, but for the adventure log (replacement for the typewriter one right now) it does. Pointers... well, futurist-looking things. They would be transparent PNGs, I can make them "glow" inside the engine.
3.- A medieval theme. Same as above, but think... castles, wizards, knights, elves, orcs :)
4.- A vanilla theme. Completely neutral and nondescript, think Helvetica fonts and Microsoft pointers.
How does that sound?
As for skins, definitely yes, I'll upload to the Assets section of our wiki the stained one I used for the Tech Demo and Live Cargo, and maybe you can see how its built in flash so you could build your own?
Dude, I really appreciate all this!
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
No problem, I'll get started
No problem, I'll get started on them soon.
What I can do now, is come up with some fonts.
For the Sci-Fi theme, I'm thinking the text should be green on a black background.
As for what font for the adventure log and on screen text, how about one of these
Andalo mono
Nimbus Mono L
Nimbus Roman No 9
Nimbus Sans L
Purisa
Raghana_W01
Swasdee
URW Chancery L
And
Purisa (Again)
Also: icons!
I should be working on the bugs, but the muse is calling me to do this first :)
I'll be experimenting with the fonts you suggested, I definitely agree the sci-fi needs to be green on black, hehe :)
And I just thought: icons. We need to change the icons at the bottom-right corner too, for each theme. And unlike the mouse pointers, I don't feel too sure the ones we have right now are that great.
We need three:
1.- To show the Adventure Log (right now its a tiny journal icon)
2.- To show the cellphone
3.- To show the savegames (right now a camera)
I can't think off the top of my head what to replace those with, I'm open to all ideas!
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
SciFi Theme...
I would like to suggest, for the scifi theme, that it be a slightly lower saturation green on a background that is very dark green, but not quite black. The green-on-black look is cool, but using the brightest green on the darkest black can kind of destroy the eyes.
For instance:
Something like this has much better readability. Thats #44DD44 text color and #0C260C background. This is also closer to the actual shade of an old-fashioned green terminal.
Obviously, the exact combination is up in the air. Just my two cents.
Edit: Also meant to say...
On the topic of font choices... which fonts are used in the editor? I don't really recognize them, but those ones would be pretty cool for the scifi theme. They're sort of angular and utilitarian while still very readable.
Coming soon!
I finished the "Themes" feature last night, but I have no icons to use as replacement yet, I'll see what can I find/make this morning. I made the vanilla and sci-fi themes, and I used your suggested font colors, too! I'll post it soon, you'll tell me :)
EDIT: I forgot to add, the editor font is "Agency FB", I chose it because it can be very legible even though its tiny, but yeah, it looks good on the sci-fi theme too! :)
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
For the medieval them, the
For the medieval them, the icons could be maybe a lance/sword(actions), a wizards staff/wand(hidden stuff) and then something else like a coat of arms for the normal pointer.
As for the sci-fi theme, I don't really have any ideas, planets or space ships maybe.
Also, good thinking RE: the green on dark green thing, just after looking at a page written in green and black, not something I'd do by choice.
Made some scifi cursors...
I made these cursors this morning:
First on dark background...
Action Cursor
Info Cursor
Move Cursor
Bonus Arrow Cursor
Now on light background!
Action Cursor
Info Cursor
Move Cursor
Bonus Arrow Cursor
As you can see, they're partially transparent in the darker-green parts, so you can see through them all fancy like. Also, the fourth cursor is supposed to be for the mouse when you're not selecting anything in particular; don't know if you'll use it, but I made it.
So yeah, if you like these just grab em and scale them down to whatever you want. I also have the original SVG files for them, if anybody's interested.
Love it!!
They're great!
I reeeally like them, man!
Look, I have to ask though: are you okay with me using these in the engine even if the engine turns a profit someday and makes tons of money? Just making sure!
But I really like them!
And Einhim, I like your idea for the medieval pointers too, although it'll take me a lil while, but that's the next theme I want to build.
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
Really loving the Sci-Fi
Really loving the Sci-Fi pointers, and the icons Jay has submitted would be great for the vanilla theme, but somehow I don't think they're "dark" enough for the spookey theme, and a flopy disc would look a tad out of place in the medieval theme.
How about a flash drive or CD for the save button in the Sci-Fi theme?
Yes, that's fine...
Since you mention it, I should clarify that these images are covered by a creative commons attribution share-alike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Which means that they're free to use for any purpose anywhere at any price (or no price) forever. Full details are available at the link. I'm not really qualified to describe what it all means ^^. Technically the license also requires that you credit me as the source of the images in the manner I specify which, in this case, I'll specify as "Whatever.". Credit me or not, I'm not worried ^^. I'll be using these for my own personal projects as well.
Icons
Also, I suggest these icons for the journal and save icons in vanilla theme (an maybe others...)
Show the log:
Save game:
Notably, I had no hand in making these ones. I basically just collect things like free icons and whatnot. These ones came from http://www.fatcow.com/free-icons/ and are under a slightly different creative commons license than mine: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
FatCow icons
Yes yes, I saw that in reddit too, I thought it was great!
Honestly I didn't have the time today to read up the terms of the CreativeCommons license; I need to think about it a bit more since there are chances the engine may go commercial some day, or be used in games the author of the content may disapprove of, things like that.
But the main reason is this: in the last iteration I tried to make the save and log icons look somewhat similar to the volume controls, and all of these standard across all themes. The thing is: I cannot re-skin the volume controls; they are what Flash provides out of the box (ahm, let me rephrase that: I probably could re-skin them if I really committed to it, but just the thought of it alone makes me groan, lol :) ). So, I gotta stick with grey, tiny, minimalistic icons for save and log for now :)
Re: pointers, thanks so much for the terms of the license, I'll get back to this sooner than later. Right now the pointers are made out of letters in various fonts, which I guess its lighter on the engine, though I can't imagine it would make a big difference if I used a tiny png instead. Totally doable; I'll get back to it, and my thanks!
P.S. Try this: load the pointer in the engine, and call it "mouse_pointer". Then, in the scene intro, type [[mouse_pointer]] somewhere. Let me know if it works, heheh :)
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
Well commercial is specifically allowed in both of these cases..
Unless the creative commons licence has 'non commercial' in the title of it, it specifically allows use in a commercial way. Since the media included with a come constitutes a "collective work" and not a "derivative work", the CC license only applies to those works that came with such a license.
As for games they don't approve of: This is part of the author's "Moral Rights" which are basically unchallenged by creative commons. It's worth noting, however, that authors from the United States don't have moral rights to their art (except in very limited cases) so if the author is from the US (like me) or if they use the US jurisdiction on their license (like Fat Cow) the best they can do is ask you to not mention their name. IE although you're supposed to list Fat Cow in the credits for the game at least as prominently as you mention yourself or any other artists, if they hate your game and think it's bad for business they can ask you to remove them from the credits but they can't take back their icons.
In any case, reading through it is worthwhile. Creative commons licenses are not very long by most standards. I'm a pretty big fan of open source and creative commons licenses, so I use them ^^. On the other hand, it's understandable if you don't want to license your hard work that way.
Gotcha
That's a very good explanation; I think it settles my concern about using Creative Commons stuff. It may still not happen though, depending on whether or not we get a couple artists to join the team (I don't want to spoil the potentially good news though!) but if that happens in the short term, we should see a new wave of development round these parts. Crossing my fingers!
I plan to live forever. So far, so good!
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