Graphics for Book 1

[satori]

WEAPONS
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I used the pics from the grandmaster (or maybe master, I forget) weapons.gif image.

The two set apart are the 'Prince's Sword' and the 'Giak Spear'

For the Prince's sword I used the broadsword weapon pic from the first book, where the broadsword only has room for one hand

The Giak spear had the head cut from this image in book 1:


And I just grafted the end of the Quarterstaff to it.

Next up is backpack items. Unfortunately not all the items in the book have an image, so one of the keys, and pos. some other special items will be pulled from the later books.

[satori]

GUI 1024x600 Very rough. Edits are in bold.


Here you can see (from bot. to top) the

1) Backpack items (10 are shown, for later expansion)
2) Your two weapons that can be carried
(left to right now)
3) On hand equipment
4) Equipped armor(s)
5) Off hand equipment
6) Your helmet
7) Psi options in combat. The top 3 are for Mindblast/Psi-Surge/Kai-Surge and the lower 2 are for Kai-Blast/Kai-Ray. The second two are resolved before the round is calc'd, so if the attack kills your opponent, combat ends.
8) +20 EN restore

The book text will be placed slightly off center (to the left).
Text seems to fit in a 450 pixel wide area. longer text will flow downwards within the same 450 wide boundry. The GUI elements will remain ancored at the top of the screen.

Due to the size of the item pictures from the book, screen real estate is a serious issue. To make things fit, I am having to split up the special items.

The main screen will ONLY show special items that can be directly used. This means keys, gems, soap, anything the book might check for, but cannot be used (equipment, weapons, and such) will not be shown on the main screen. These SI will be on the left.

The reason I can use all the backpack spaces is simple....There are weapon special items. Almost all of them are in the same 180x40 size. Most (that I have seen) backpack items are much more 'square' and can be resized to the size of the backpack items without getting ugly. If weapons are made any smaller, they really start to look like (Insert your favorite dirty word here).

Since some special items (helm and armor) are represented on the right, I'm hoping 5 or 6 SI slots will be enough for the main page.

Since my dream of a single page for everything looks doomed (unless I build it to a 1600x1200 spec) I will have to use multiple pages.

Looks like this so far:

1) Main page, handles almost everything (including combat)
2) Player stats, shows dis., lore circles, and other player stats
3) Expanded inventory (shows all special items, backpack items, basically every physical object)

1 Is the real engine. Uses a popup window for trading/inv functions.
2 Is just for looks (for you, the player)
3 Is just for looks (for you, the player). Inv. CAN NOT be altered from this screen.


Combat will be placed near the weapon/helm/armor section.
Player info (name, rank, arrows stored, crowns, etc...) will be along the top.
Page navigation options will be in the lower left.

[outspaced]

On the Player Stats page, under the Disciplines heading, would it be possible to list the Discipline text from the books, and also the "Improved Disciplines" information split up against each Discipline? This would probably need to be a popup window due to space constraints, but I think it might be nice to be able to look over your Disciplines' information easily.

[satori]

outspaced said:

On the Player Stats page, under the Disciplines heading, would it be possible to list the Discipline text from the books, and also the "Improved Disciplines" information split up against each Discipline? This would probably need to be a popup window due to space constraints, but I think it might be nice to be able to look over your Disciplines' information easily.

Regarding Improved Dis info, the player stats page will show those that are active (i.e. that you meet the reqs. for) only. Since each book has them listed, players who want to 'read up' on them in general can use the book info, but yes, all Dis you have will be shown, and will reflect current levels (when mindblast goes from +2 to +3 the discription will reflect that). This includes lore circles and such. And yes, popup windows (on click) would be used.

I'm also thinking about doing away with page numbers being displayed (there will be a mechanism for puzzle solving). They would be shown in a debug mode for testing, but since I'm leaning for not showing options you can't take I figure why not go all the way. I think it discourages meta-gaming somewhat, as you don't learn what items/skill you could use in every situation. Since I know many people will disagree with me, this will of course be an option that can be turned on/off (skill/item filters and page number mask)

Jacob