Alternate menu options and map intercell navigation flags

[glowkitten]

First off, great game guys. I am a programmer and there are lots of little details I really like.

With that said, there are two aspects I have a hard time with.
1. The ingame menu buttons end up pretty small on my lg tribute. Also they just feel kind of off. After some 20+ hours of playing, I still hit the map button on accident and have to cancel out of it to get to my items. What I propose, is that the pda menu and the item menu not be squished together as it creates a false connection in the brain, as the two buttons are too similar. Put one on the far right, and one on the far left so you can use one thumb for each menu if you hold a droid like a psp. Also the menus move around with the icons on the top in some menus, but on the bottom on the mainscreen. This is a bit of a gui faux paus unless you change the icons in some way to trick the brain like learning two menus.(I specialize in guis and menus for software.)

2.The second request is to set flags for north east south and west, so I can navigate purely by the map menu from cell to cell. This was noticed in the made not born campaign and continued to present frustration in the nbz. Many games would not use the map select-to-move option, but personally, I LOVE it for a rpg game <3. It's so handy that I feel it could use that last step to make it revolutionary.


I am going to be buying the game today. I don't buy stuff from the playstore as I do not encourage the market to be a money pit, and I load my own movies/music/games, so you should feel kinda special. I do it for you because I like your coding ethics. You gave me enough game to find joy in it for free without a miserable nagging experience. I want coding to develop a sense of chivalry and your games represent that sense of honor and contribution to the matrix that is the WWW.

I may go for broke and pick up a few trese releases as these types of games are rare (quick progressing non-linear strategy rpg.) Do you have any sort of place I can get all the games in 1 purchase?
I strongly suggest you guys create a publishing group with other game developers with similar genres and advertising ethics. Maybe one day it could be the Steam of the android developers.

[fallen]

glowkitten - thanks for the praise on the game.

We love feedback and are always working to improve. I am not sure what you mean by "is to set flags for north east south and west so I can navigate purely by the map from cell to cell" -- perhaps you can explain again or provide a screenshot?

There is no "super package" of Trese Brothers games, as each is its own app. But, here is our full listing of offerings:
www.tresebrothers.com/catalog

[Cory Trese]

for #2, how are you currently getting around the NBZ? Are you using the arrows, way-points and smart exits?

[glowkitten]

I logged in with my computer. I still hate typing in my cell phone.


Ok, so you know how you click on a data terminal twice and it moves you to the data terminal? That is my preferred movement choice. It's like plotting a course in a starship, and I love it!! It may be why I like the controls in the game so much.

I am suggesting you put a flag (a link with a "go to" reference like you did for the buildings and data terminals,) and put one for easy navigation to the next cell (zone.) I have to try to doubleclick the very last square to go from cell to cell. It makes me not want to run from one end of New boston to the other at all as this has to happen in repetition for each cell. I try to find jobs that are close not out of risk or danger, but out of not wanting to try to double click and scroll, double click then scroll, double click then scroll etc.
Think like from the map screen a clickable green dot to each possible exit from the the cell you are in.
You know that green dot you put into the made not born demo between I93 and canal tunnels to show players the entrance/exit between zones? That green dot should be clickable to set a computer controlled auto-move like you have for buildings and data terminals. This way, all non combat movement could be done through the map menu. Having several modes can let players get to choose what works best for them. I imagine some zoom out and move, others scroll to the edges, others use the map almost exclusively whenever possible like myself.


I hope that cleared things up. It's kinda hard to talk about layouts and menus and game mechanics with clarity sometimes lol.

Consider a launcher for all trese brothers games so people can buy all the games and run all of them from one shortcut. Even better if you can buy them, uninstall while playing the next game in the lineup, reinstall to return to the next game without losing the license, swap games from one phone to the next when upgrading, and do this all from a single platform launcher. Less clutter, more control, better distribution, and easier to see update reminders for fans, who could see that a game they uninstalled has a new feature like a new class in cyberknights or faction in star traders etc they may want to check out. It may be just that I hate the playstores layout lol. The playstore should list program description by default and have a collapsing menu for reviews instead of the other way around, and fix several other gui layout mismanagement issues.

[Cory Trese]

Have you tried long pressing the buttons on the map?

I also appreciate the need to navigate easily between the cells.

I think with the current features, it is possible to navigate without even using the location map (buildings list.)

Play with the arrows on the main screen (the "D-Pad" in the Options page) to see if you can find what you're looking for.

And we'll investigate on our end as a possibility.

[Brutus Aurelius]

I kinda like the current mode of travel. It adds to the feeling of moving through a large city, despite no civilians being anywhere visible...

[glowkitten]

I turned off the arrows on the birdseye view as I would hit them when I was trying to scroll, and it left me centered on a weird position. When I would try to just use the arrows, I would scroll by accident. Both modes required a lot of dexterity and precision for a game that is not based around action. The map auto-move was the saving grace, where I can select a location and then watch my character move there. It feels more immersive as I can focus on what I am doing in the game more than what I am doing with my hands. Granted I don't have a herculean galaxy or phablet where the gamebuttons would size better.
I tried longer presses on the arrows in the mapview and it's not generating movement.
I think you got what I mean with navigating quickly between cells. Navigating manually several entire cells seems kinda a hassle. You guys have already implemented a local fast travel type of option through the map, why not use it to run across one entire zone at a time? :-) It seems like it would be faster to test for you in the alpha testing phases between versions as well, so it could be win win.
NBZ mapview kinda reminds me of the first legend of zelda in the overworld ;-)

[grävling]

First of all, welcome to the forums.

The game already has N NE NW S SE SW E and W flags for zipping across the zone.

That is what the onscreen dpad is for.

see:

I am standing outside of the Six Shooter's Club in Mars Core.
If I single press any of the blue or green arrows I will run in that direction, around buildings and other obstacles. If I travel North or
South, for instance I am aiming for x, y where the x coordinate is 'whatever it is where I am standing now' and the y coordinate is 'top of
screen' and 'bottom of screen'. Similarly if I travel East or West, I am aiming for 'the right hand side of the screen', 'whatever the y coordinate is where I am standing' or 'the left hand side of the screen, whatever the y coordinate where I am standing'.

One of three things happens. Two are common.

Either you run into an unpenetrable boundary -- usually a wall. There is no way to get to the cell you aimed for
from here. So, in this instance if a single press the North arrow, I will end up just south of a fence just south of the wall dividing Mars territory from Blue Ox territory (Narrows). You cannot get there from here.

Or the other thing that commonly happens is that you reach the edge of the screen. Then the transition to the next cell happens.

The uncommon thing is that the game's path finding algorithm is unable to find a short enough way to get to where it thinks you want to go. The river that divides some of the buildings in Old Kenmore from the others is a good example of this. In order to get from the Old Theater to SlayerNZ shipping, you would have to use the bridge south of the Bottle and Flagon, but that path is too long -- so the game just doesn't take you
anywhere.


But your problem is cell-to-cell navigation. As a convenience, because there are walls all over the NBZ, there often are green arrows. In the ascreenshot above we have one south and one east.

From the Six Shooters club, if you single tap the east green arrow, you will end up blocked at a wall. But if you long press it, it will
find the convenient exit to Beacon Hill and take you there. On your navigation map, you can see small green circles that indicate
where the green arrows, long pressed will take you. Here is the one for Mars Core.


Here I am, outside the Six Shooter. Directly east of me is a wall. Short pressing the green east arrow takes me there. But just north of that is a green circle, that is where long pressing the green east arrow gets me -- I pop out at Beacon Hill at that point.

There is also a south green arrow. There is no wall south of me, so single pressing the south green arrow pops me into Yakashima Core, just south of wherever I am standing. And if I have business in Yakashima Core, that is fine for me. However, if I have business Downtown (2 cells south of here) then I really want to be using the east road which is to the east of the Yakashima Core complex. Walls block any other approach from the North from Yakashima Core to Downtown. Long pressing the south green arrow when you are anywhere in Mars Core gets you precisely this -- you end up right by that east road in Yakashima Core.

So, problem solved? Or did you want flags on the navigation map to accomplish this?

[glowkitten]

It requires that I turn on the d-pad arrows, which is near instant with the run animation off, and easy to hit by accident. So in order to run quickly, it requires either
1) scrolling and selecting with extreme caution, as one slight slip means I will run to the end of the zone in less than 1 second if I don't get an encounter.
or
2)I could turn on the run animation and return to having time in the event of a mistake to cancel the move gesture. This also comes at the expense of never moving fast again.

Your game screen looks huge compared to mine lol. I can see how this is not an issue for many. The rest of the game runs well for my device size, but the arrows take up a large portion of the clickable area and are very easy to set off by accident. I still request flags, so smaller phone users can deactivate the onscreen d pad (or maybe 2 or 3 arrow sizes to make them a smaller footprint if that would be easier.) I would rather struggle to hit them, than accidently hit them when trying to click a square that is not within a 1 inch by 1 inch square in the center of my device lol.

[grävling]

And you want the flags in the navigation map? And, yes the screenshots come from my 7 inch tablet. It's spacious, especially when compared to my phone. When the D-pad went into the game (and all I had was my phone) I turned it off, too. But I ended up getting used to it ..

[grävling]

Also, something you might want to try if you haven't already is disabling 'auto resume move'. It may be that the reason you are clicking on
the arrows when you don't wish to is because you are feeling rushed, because the game is continuing when you end an encounter. Not only do you have to remember 'now where was I going' but you may decide that you don't want to go there -- right now in any event -- because a trip to the
clinic to get healed is your new #1 priority.

[fallen]

glowkitten - can you post your device details? I can look into resizing the on-screen dpad resources for your device.

[Cory Trese]

The d-pad button size is a compromise, no doubt. Placing touchable regions in an overlapping layout is not ideal.

The other option -- a border that contains only the d-pad is actually much worse for smaller devices, because the loss of map real estate is particularly painful.

[glowkitten]

Lg tribute.
Display 4.5 inches vertical
Resolution 480 x 800 px.
Pixel density 207.
Technology IPS LCD

Thanks for taking a look into this guys ;-)

[Cory Trese]

My screen is 4.7 inches, 720 x 1280 pixels w/ ~312 ppi

That device is a bit small, but should be workable.

When I am playing CK, I never actually tap on the map outside of combat.

I use the navigation arrows, waypoints and the building navigator exclusively.

I'm looking at the very original request -- that is to add the "smart exit" coordinates to the building navigator (optionally.)