Angband 80x24 sereen display - a modest proposal

[tametick]

2. Do you want to allow different platforms to differ in their functionality? I decided to design things so that this would be possible - so OS X has different conventions to Windows, which has different conventions to GTK and then again to terminal emulators. You might want the UI to pan out quite differently depending on platform. I think now it would be better just to treat these desktop platforms the same. I always wanted the game to integrate with the OS well, like a normal application, but it seems pretty obvious to me now that it was misguided and unnecessarily complicated.

I'm glad to read that

Games are not "normal" applications & shouldn't look like a text editor or a spreadsheet - it is more important for the game to have a consistent internal style than to fit in with the style of non-game applications on the host OS.

In fact we should actively try to make games not look like normal apps (I've made the same mistake myself with some poor choices of fonts & colors).

[Shockbolt]

Now, I'm not claiming that CQ is some genius work of graphics design (there are many indie/hobbyist games out there that look a ton better), but this is what I managed to do in a game that was basically a one-man operation for most of its life with not a huge ton of work spent on graphics.

Wall decorations and wall variations have been painted, even 2.5D walls have been made, but the current Angband code doesn't handle the above yet..

example image pulled from the 64x64 tile thread:

[Nomad]

In my experience (and I tested this quite extensively a few years back) playing with just the mouse is good, and playing with just the keyboard is good, but trying to play with both is jarring and awkward.

I am one of the apparently few people who play Angband with the default sized window, no subwindows, and the fact that it's entirely keyboard based with no in-game mouse movements is a big part of the appeal for me. Probably to do with why I play; I'm a writer, and I find it incredibly useful to have something that keeps my fingers engaged, constantly typing, while I'm composing my next line or paragraph. (There is nothing quite so bad for getting writing done as sitting poised unmoving in front of a computer, mentally chanting, "Come on, think, brain".)

So as a rule, I'm switching back and forth between two windows very frequently, and games that take up too much screen space or have interactive stuff pop up whenever you move the mouse across them make that a much more annoying process. That's the biggest thing that bugs me about playing Crawl: can't have the mouse anywhere over the window without unwanted hover info popping up under it.

So by all means, add lots of cool, whizzy stuff to the UI - just make sure all of it can be completely disabled, because for some of us playing in a single compact window with minimum interactivity is an important feature, not a flaw.

[Shockbolt]

I am one of the apparently few people who play Angband with the default sized window, no subwindows, and the fact that it's entirely keyboard based with no in-game mouse movements is a big part of the appeal for me. Probably to do with why I play; I'm a writer, and I find it incredibly useful to have something that keeps my fingers engaged, constantly typing, while I'm composing my next line or paragraph. (There is nothing quite so bad for getting writing done as sitting poised unmoving in front of a computer, mentally chanting, "Come on, think, brain".)

So as a rule, I'm switching back and forth between two windows very frequently, and games that take up too much screen space or have interactive stuff pop up whenever you move the mouse across them make that a much more annoying process. That's the biggest thing that bugs me about playing Crawl: can't have the mouse anywhere over the window without unwanted hover info popping up under it.

So by all means, add lots of cool, whizzy stuff to the UI - just make sure all of it can be completely disabled, because for some of us playing in a single compact window with minimum interactivity is an important feature, not a flaw.

Same here, my "wish" for Angband is that the UI becomes graphical or at least comes with an option to view it that way instead of just text as it is now. I did make a poor example of it in another thread just can't remember which at the moment.

I've always played angband using the keyboard and I don't think adding mouse support will add to the gameplay itself, it would however speed up the monster/creature/item/trap identification process on mouseover compared to using the keys.

[DarkGod]

Mouse support is *vital*, not for existing players, but to grab the attention of new ones. It allows to start playing immediately and later, if they stick to the game, start to learn keyboard shortcuts.
Mouse should let you do most important things: casting, running(and I mean running; a single step per click is not good enough), using inventory, ...

As shockbolt just said, his tiles are made to have variations, wall corners & such.

Also, UI customizability, while it is a nice goal, should *never* be an excuse to not have a good default; you can't tell new players "oh this sucks I know, but if you fiddle with those weird parameters in this .prf file it'll be better". You can not and will never please everyone, but strive for the majority (and the majority(of players not RL players) expects mouse to be usable).

Angband has three big problems IMO: UI is not great (far better than many other RLs IMO but still not good enough for 2012), it encourages grinding too much (personal opinion obviously) and it lacks a real consistent theme.

[tametick]

Wall decorations and wall variations have been painted, even 2.5D walls have been made, but the current Angband code doesn't handle the above yet..

This is looking really good, and I hope the code part will do your really nice tiles justice

[tametick]

Angband has three big problems IMO: UI is not great (far better than many other RLs IMO but still not good enough for 2012), it encourages grinding too much (personal opinion obviously) and it lacks a real consistent theme.

I would add to those that it's too slow to get to the interesting parts, but I guess that's contained in your 2nd point (as if you dive really fast you do get a more interesting game, but angband very much does not encourage the player to do that).

[Magnate]

I would add to those that it's too slow to get to the interesting parts, but I guess that's contained in your 2nd point (as if you dive really fast you do get a more interesting game, but angband very much does not encourage the player to do that).

You've missed quite a few discussions then. We've been encouraging diving so much over the past four years that there was a backlash against it, because people feel that the "true Angband spirit" is actually to be more difficult and grindy, so the pendulum has swung back a little. Interestingly Jeff, the OP of this thread, was one of the most vocal "you've done too much to encourage diving" opinion formers.

[DarkGod]

The problem is that it is human nature to do cumbersome & annoying things to gain an advantages, only to later declare it's sucking to have to play this way (even though they dont have to).

I dont see how it can be both more grindy & difficult. If it is difficult it's by definition not grindy, and if it is grindable then the difficulty vanishes

[tametick]

You've missed quite a few discussions then. We've been encouraging diving so much over the past four years that there was a backlash against it, because people feel that the "true Angband spirit" is actually to be more difficult and grindy, so the pendulum has swung back a little. Interestingly Jeff, the OP of this thread, was one of the most vocal "you've done too much to encourage diving" opinion formers.

Like the vast majority of (both potential & actual) players, I don't read the forums

I only got here because Andrew posted a link on his blog.

[Magnate]

The problem is that it is human nature to do cumbersome & annoying things to gain an advantages, only to later declare it's sucking to have to play this way (even though they dont have to).

I dont see how it can be both more grindy & difficult. If it is difficult it's by definition not grindy, and if it is grindable then the difficulty vanishes

Ah, then I don't think I interpreted your original point correctly. I mistook 'grinding' to mean 'forces the player to stay at shallower depths and grind for xp/gear because it's too hard to descend'. That obviously isn't what you meant. Sorry.

[Magnate]

Like the vast majority of (both potential & actual) players, I don't read the forums

I only got here because Andrew posted a link on his blog.

Potential players, definitely. Actual players, I'm not so sure. The package popularity stats for Debian & Ubuntu suggest that Angband doesn't have that many players. I don't know the download stats for rephial - there may be a significant number of Windows or Mac players who never visit Oook.

Regardless, it was interesting that your immediate reaction was that the game is still not sufficiently encouraging of diving. If that was based on playing 3.3.2, it should give us pause for further thought.

[takkaria]

Potential players, definitely. Actual players, I'm not so sure. The package popularity stats for Debian & Ubuntu suggest that Angband doesn't have that many players. I don't know the download stats for rephial - there may be a significant number of Windows or Mac players who never visit Oook.

Regardless, it was interesting that your immediate reaction was that the game is still not sufficiently encouraging of diving. If that was based on playing 3.3.2, it should give us pause for further thought.

Each month, there's about 1500 downloads on rephial. 70% Windows, 20% OS X and 10% source.

[Magnate]

Each month, there's about 1500 downloads on rephial. 70% Windows, 20% OS X and 10% source.

Ok, then tametick was absolutely right - the vast majority of those people are not reading Oook. Unless everyone here is downloading it several times a month ;-)

[Shockbolt]

One way of many, could be to use either pop up windows or minimized/expanded menus from a bottom located section, see examples below: