General Discussion

[CherryWood]

This is from earlier when I was thinking on how to fit all into one screen:

(previous ones)

[DarkTl]

^Yup, that's what I mean more or less.

[Xela]

I  am not sure that it's the way to go...

We need a main screen with most important data like MC finance data, important events that may require attention and general info on the front page.

Then we need something similar to what we have now on detail pages.

The layout and the amount of info we want to display on the main page is the most important topic for discussion. Followed closely by Building pages and only then individual reports pages. I personally likes CW's design, it's definitely something to consider.

[DarkTl]

I hope you don't think that someone would watch dozens of unsorted events every single turn. Players will skip that screen, end of story.

In wm there is a list of girls at the report screen, where you could select a girl and watch her events if you want to. If there is some kind of important event, the girl will be highlighted with red color.

[Xela]

I hope you don't think that someone would watch dozens of unsorted events every single turn. Players will skip that screen, end of story.

Not sure where you got that from.

In wm there is a list of girls at the report screen, where you could select a girl and watch her events if you want to. If there is some kind of important event, the girl will be highlighted with red color.

WM system (imo) is one of the worst from the sim family games. I thinks there should be a main screen with fast access to important events, building filters and general info followed by a number of individual reports as we have now.

[DarkTl]

That's what we have now. 27 minor, unimportant, quite repetitive events, one event per screen. If this is not a lack of ergonomics, then what is? Do you seriously watch them all when you play?

I'd say this is the worst system ever.

[Xela]

That's what we have now. 27 minor, unimportant, quite repetitive events, one event per screen. If this is not a lack of ergonomics, then what is? Do you seriously watch them all when you play?

I'd say this is the worst system ever.

I usually do watch some/most of them. This was the breakpoint at which I actually abandoned direct Alkion development and took a support/testing role, I could accept RPG angle (especially since we're starting to lean towards something similar in PyTFall), but if one job event per screen is abandoned (as an option, not enforced obviously) someone else would have to develop PyTFall or it's branch, there are only 2 - 3 of these "must haves" in the whole game from my part but it's one of them.

[Parlarkey]

I don't think you two are even that far apart in opinions. From what I gather, DarkTL's main concern is that right now you have to wade through most of those events in order to get the information you need to manage your business. A well designed turn summary screen would give the player most of that information on the fly, after which they can choose to go through some (or all) of the individual reports. I do quite like the individual reports (especially once more events will start making it into the game, giving them some more variety).

I honestly don't think that what the game 'needs' is that different from the WM end of turn screen. In WM, the names becoming red when something out of the ordinary was happening was really helpful, and it took a lot less time to manage the girls that had nothing special going on. Sure, I'd still go through the events every now and then to see what was going on and to watch the images, but all in all I didn't have to if I'd had that girl for a while and had seen it all by then. The game was sometimes a bit random as to what was considered important enough to warrant a red highlight (for example level ups were not highlighted, which I would've preferred), but in general it was a good way to get information without having to dig.

And FWIW, in Pytfall you can go to partial summaries by clicking the buttons in the lower left and lower right. It's a decent enough way to manage stuff for now (you get one screen per girl instead of 4-5, once you get used to the actions that can cause stats to rise and fall you can more or less deduct what's been happening), but I'm glad the development for a more streamlined, more 'top down' end of turn screen is still being considered .

[DarkTl]

Don't know about you, but I'm planning to have as many girls as possible. Let's say, 500 girls x 4 events per day = 2000 events screens per turn. This is madness, you will never find the information you need.

I'm not against the individual reports, but there should be sorting options allowing to not see minor events (like some "old",  high lvl girl successfully cleans the building every turn) that you don't want and don't need to see.
I think wm has quite handy sorting options. If you know some better sorting system, be my guest. But right now all events screens are enforced, and this can't be good for everyone.

[Xela]

But right now all events screens are enforced, and this can't be good for everyone.

This is exactly what I am trying to get rid of and waiting for people to drop some ideas. I cannot see how WM system solves the issue, to me it was always confusing as hell. I do have some ideas of my own but I want to see some other options first.

[DarkTl]

I told you about hierarchical tree, like on that Cherry's picture. It's similar to wm screen, though not identical. No idea how else we could combine all reports to one screen.

[Xela]

I told you about hierarchical tree, like on that Cherry's picture. It's similar to wm screen, though not identical. No idea how else we could combine all reports to one screen.

Good plan, We need to talk layout and specifics (what info we include and what goes where).

[DarkTl]

Well, one option is to sort them by locations. Like,
Brothels->Brothel1
              |->Brothel2
              |->Brothel3->Girl1
                                |->Girl2
MC House->Girl1
                |->Girl2

Schools->XXX School->Girl1
                                 |->Girl2
That tree should be in the left part, and when you select a girl, her events screens should appear on the right side of the screen.
Pretty much like windows explorer.

We could sort them by occupations or jobs, but that probably would be less clear, though we could add different sorting options, including simple alphabetical order.

[CherryWood]

I don't really have any new idea about report screen beyond those I put as comments on that first two pictures.

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Bad news: I will not be able to do anything (again  ) for the game until the end of another week - this weekend I'm without PC, then I have school exams and on next weekend I'm going to animefest...

[MonkeyBoo]

Hey, I tried out a layout I had in mind for what you guys are talking about, although I didn't think about other specifics than girl information.


https://mega.co.nz/#!X1JjmZCZ!w2u4FJY-LPZaZPMIoirHL0ckuhmlynVJlUXbQ4xJJJc


Unlike Cherry's example, I tried to squeeze in all the information the girls have in a row. First I wanted to make a single row per girl, but I find an image necessary for identification sometimes, although for 500 girls it would be useless.


The screen width is of 1366, text Arial Narrow, size 11. The example is only a concept. You could either have one row per Action point or per girl, as an alternative to the 100/100 for skills you could have 0 or blank and +1 / -2 if there is a gain or loss, however the colors would be equivalent between the two display styles.


The color variation is by Brothel, and thus maybe we could eliminate the name from the list and have a tool tip explaining the difference, as a tutorial for new players. The color variation for each girl could also be per row instead of two rows, maybe it could work.


The image size is currently 40 x 40 pixels, I think it might work although scaling might be necessary depending on monitor resolutions.


The distribution could either be by girl or by AP per girl, I don't know about the coding for this but maybe it would be easy to reorganize the list after a criteria from inside the game on the fly.


As for the rest of the screen real-estate maybe on top you could have personal / total finances, let's say the equivalent of 3 to 4 girl slots dedicated to that, and an equivalent of another girl slot dedicated to sorting options for the girl list just between the girls and personal information, jumping from the existing to this or other sorting screens.


My initial vision was of having one line per girl, just text no images, and display only the affected stats, but you could easily have 10 affected stats per girl, and 1 for another girl, making it a total mess. I think information is easier to sort through if you have everything for everyone with the important stuff highlighted than to only show important stuff. Because then you clearly know... oh middle of the screen, the girl lost that... a bit to the right.. she gained that...


My 2 cents