[DISCUSSION] UI Design & Thoughts

[lord of 13]

Hey Incantus and other UI devs,

I'm creating my own rules-compliant engine & game for MtG in C#; I've so far finished the deck editor and a few minor things like format legality enforcement as of today. I'm beginning work on the front end gameplay GUI of my project, and am also seeking a few people to chat with about developing such a GUI. Generally speaking, I want to discuss how to expose the many aspects of the gameplay are expressed by the board state - permanents, counters, gained abilities, attached cards, zones, etc. Please PM me or reply on this thread if you're interested; I would like to publish an article on my blog by this Monday (28/11/10).

Thanks,
Lord of 13

[Incantus]

Sure, you can find me on #incantus on efnet (http://mibbit.com/channel=%23incantus&s ... lessed.net) if you ever want to chat. MageKing also hangs out there sometime.

[lord of 13]

Great! Is there any time that we can set up to meet there? I've tried to find you there a few times and you haven't been there or your status is set to "away".

[MageKing17]

Great! Is there any time that we can set up to meet there? I've tried to find you there a few times and you haven't been there or your status is set to "away".

Stay longer.

Seriously, though, while I'm on the channel very often (I idle for long stretches of time), I'm not really the person to talk to about the UI. I know just enough about it to have barely made sound and music (and player colors) work; beyond that, my UI knowledge is literally nonexistant.

[drekonja]

To not make a new thread and seeing this thread is already dedicated to UI.

I want to list some suggestions which would be only game itself unrelated, but it would maybe make gameplay better, at least for me. Some may be quite pointless, some may be already on the way, some may be impossible to do, however here are mine:

- Making a message for winning player too, so far only losing player gets a message. I know, it may sound pointless, but a gamer wants to get some satisfaction that he achieved something, cinematics in games work just like this, a prize for gamer who finished a game or battle (of course, here a single message may suffice)
- Tracking results for matches against different players, it could be useful for observer acting like a judge in case of incantus tournaments
- Adding concede option (it may be on its way now)
- Autotapping lands (and maybe other mana sources) when double clicking a card which can be played, similar how it works in Shandalar
- Along with library (as facedown (pile of) card(s)) there could be a face up last card put in a graveyard (that would make only more natural feeling, nothing more)
- Dropdown menu for selecting decks (but that may require rewriting the whole interface?)
- Checking format of decks (for example, Standard, Extended, Legacy, Vintage, ...) checking also for banned/restricted cards
- Limited play (each player selects cards for their deck from certain amount of avalaible cards)
- AI (okay that it's not probably a goal for incantus)

Note that these suggestions are not all essential, however I'd really like to see autotapping lands.

[Incantus]

To not make a new thread and seeing this thread is already dedicated to UI.

I want to list some suggestions which would be only game itself unrelated, but it would maybe make gameplay better, at least for me. Some may be quite pointless, some may be already on the way, some may be impossible to do, however here are mine:

OK, I'll see what i can do

- Making a message for winning player too, so far only losing player gets a message. I know, it may sound pointless, but a gamer wants to get some satisfaction that he achieved something, cinematics in games work just like this, a prize for gamer who finished a game or battle (of course, here a single message may suffice)

Good idea. In general I need to go through and tidy up all the messages to the user. But this is a good point.

- Tracking results for matches against different players, it could be useful for observer acting like a judge in case of incantus tournaments

Not sure what you mean? Do you mean recording each match separately and storing them in a database to replay? This might be a cool idea.

- Adding concede option (it may be on its way now)

Yes, this needs to be done

- Autotapping lands (and maybe other mana sources) when double clicking a card which can be played, similar how it works in Shandalar

This is tricky. Might be possible to do so that it's not finicky or annoying.

- Along with library (as facedown (pile of) card(s)) there could be a face up last card put in a graveyard (that would make only more natural feeling, nothing more)

This is planned (in the space between the two player statuses)

- Dropdown menu for selecting decks (but that may require rewriting the whole interface?)

Yeah, in general the intro menus/non game interface is crap and needs to be redone. But it's better than before (you had to edit incantus.ini to change anything.)

- Checking format of decks (for example, Standard, Extended, Legacy, Vintage, ...) checking also for banned/restricted cards

- Limited play (each player selects cards for their deck from certain amount of avalaible cards)

Possibly, but this might be better done in an external deck editor.

- AI (okay that it's not probably a goal for incantus)

I don't think the way Incantus is written I could do an AI that would provide any kind of challenge. Unfortunately, it seems the more rules compliant you are, the more difficult it becomes to do a good AI.