I take the freedom to post here my Unangband wish list, part 1.
It's not so much meant as a critique of the existing state, but to give ideas what could be improved - if my ideas do not fit, or the points in this list are deemed the wrong points to improve, no problem. But I thought to post the points anyways, maybe they can spawn some ideas for future Unangband releases.
- Room messages hide on next step. I miss most of them and need to look them up in the log. Some way to make them stay for a few more turns would be nice. (Maybe even until a new message pops up, or until the room is left.)
- Running in a dusty corridor ends up with a big pile of "The floor is thick with dust" messages that all pop up at once when running stops.
- The leveling up UI uses to pop up in the middle of a fight. This disrupts the games flow. It would be nice if that could wait till I am ready to actually spend the points. (Program could store the points till user actually wants to distribute them).
- "Home town FAQ" is shown very early, usually while one is in Hobbiton. I found this confusing when I travelled to Bree the first time and found out that I cannot go back to Hobbiton - and I had set my "home town" there! Later I found out that it doesn't seems to matter, but I'm afraid other new players will be similarily confused.
- Generally the info texts are a very good idea. They just pop up so unexpectedly and disrupt the flow of the game. I'd suggest a less intrusive way to notify the player - like a small status line or message that a new note/parchment/paper was found and can be read now. The player can then decide to read when they feel ready to read. Other games often show a "stack" of info icons or such, and the player can read them when ready, and outdated info fades from the stack. This is not quite possible in an ASCII game, but a similar unintrusive mechanic would be good.
- Goats, cows and chicken should not hunt the player. New players like me do not know that they are harmless (I'm still not 100% positive that they are), and feel compelled to flee or fight them. Faerie type monsters keep a distance to the player; this would fit well to the animals in town, too - even some of the dogs and cats could be less furious than they usually are.
- Searching a painted wall currently turns it into a plain granite wall if "nothing interesting" is found. Same for writing covered walls. This makes the dungeon look more boring after searching - would it be possible to keep the painting and writings, and instead if something interesting was discovered do a wall type transition?
- Bree and Hobbiton would look better with some bushes, maybe even trees. I could not find out where the right code place would be to add these, otherwise I'd add them myself ... so I put this on my little wish list, too.
- Levels are themed, I think. Maybe level feelings could be theme specific, or include a theme specific part. Room description already generate a nice atmosphere, and this could be a good opener for the player when they enter a new level.
I hope I don't come across too picky. I just think that even small user interface changes sometimes improve the players experience a lot. And I see a lot of good ideas already there in Unangband
Edit: Typos.
It's not so much meant as a critique of the existing state, but to give ideas what could be improved - if my ideas do not fit, or the points in this list are deemed the wrong points to improve, no problem. But I thought to post the points anyways, maybe they can spawn some ideas for future Unangband releases.
- Room messages hide on next step. I miss most of them and need to look them up in the log. Some way to make them stay for a few more turns would be nice. (Maybe even until a new message pops up, or until the room is left.)
- Running in a dusty corridor ends up with a big pile of "The floor is thick with dust" messages that all pop up at once when running stops.
- The leveling up UI uses to pop up in the middle of a fight. This disrupts the games flow. It would be nice if that could wait till I am ready to actually spend the points. (Program could store the points till user actually wants to distribute them).
- "Home town FAQ" is shown very early, usually while one is in Hobbiton. I found this confusing when I travelled to Bree the first time and found out that I cannot go back to Hobbiton - and I had set my "home town" there! Later I found out that it doesn't seems to matter, but I'm afraid other new players will be similarily confused.
- Generally the info texts are a very good idea. They just pop up so unexpectedly and disrupt the flow of the game. I'd suggest a less intrusive way to notify the player - like a small status line or message that a new note/parchment/paper was found and can be read now. The player can then decide to read when they feel ready to read. Other games often show a "stack" of info icons or such, and the player can read them when ready, and outdated info fades from the stack. This is not quite possible in an ASCII game, but a similar unintrusive mechanic would be good.
- Goats, cows and chicken should not hunt the player. New players like me do not know that they are harmless (I'm still not 100% positive that they are), and feel compelled to flee or fight them. Faerie type monsters keep a distance to the player; this would fit well to the animals in town, too - even some of the dogs and cats could be less furious than they usually are.
- Searching a painted wall currently turns it into a plain granite wall if "nothing interesting" is found. Same for writing covered walls. This makes the dungeon look more boring after searching - would it be possible to keep the painting and writings, and instead if something interesting was discovered do a wall type transition?
- Bree and Hobbiton would look better with some bushes, maybe even trees. I could not find out where the right code place would be to add these, otherwise I'd add them myself ... so I put this on my little wish list, too.
- Levels are themed, I think. Maybe level feelings could be theme specific, or include a theme specific part. Room description already generate a nice atmosphere, and this could be a good opener for the player when they enter a new level.
I hope I don't come across too picky. I just think that even small user interface changes sometimes improve the players experience a lot. And I see a lot of good ideas already there in Unangband
Edit: Typos.
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