white_noise wrote:18. I like old treasure chest for acquirement. You just can't make it any better.
Funny story: the old acquirement has always looked to me like some kind of artifact medieval "Zippo" lighter. I never realised it was even supposed to be a treasure chest until I looked again after your comment! So, I prefer the trunk version, it's a lot clearer.
white_noise wrote:26. Made little changes to amnesia icon, as requested. Although butt cheeks will always be there from now on. You can't just turn off this association.
Sorry about that
Although I might have found my signature
white_noise wrote:It would be ok to use pentagram for torment if there would be something better for summoning.
I have one idea. Imagine a genie coming out of a bottle - so the top half is fully formed and visible; but the bottom half shrinks off to a tail, is distorted and fades out toward the base. Now replace the genie with something demonic, and take away the lamp. So it appears that something horribly demonic is kind of forming out of nowhere.
Some more general ideas on how to pick the icon sets - it seems to me that historically and still right now we have a bit of a mixture of three distinct
ways to represent an icon:
Symbolic: An purely abstract representation of a concept. The player probably can't be able to determine at first glance what the icon means, but once they've learnt it, it's very clear and distinct for them to identify at a quick glance. A lot of RPGs actually use this type of icon across pretty much all spells, abilities, etc. The old Teleport, the trunk Blink and Teleport, old and trunk Holy Word, old Fear (for me at least) - these are all abstract symbols that we have to learn the meaning of.
Diagrammatic: A small diagram showing you what the thing does, perhaps a sequence of events. Possibly involving extra symbolic elements such as arrows or a red X that aren't very pretty but convey a meaning to humans rather than being an image that fits in the game world. We have the old/new Blink, old/trunk Amnesia, Silence, and Curse; the new Teleport, and some others can perhaps be counted here like Noise (although that could be Symbolic...), old Magic Mapping, Noise (again maybe symbolic).
Pictoral: A literal picture of the effect happening
or something that very clearly and in a literal way represents it. In my view, the majority of icons fit this definition, and especially the vast majority of my favourite ones out of all the sets. For instance the enchant scrolls show an item glowing a particular colour, which is literally what happens when you use it. The compass and treasure chest also fit this; both of these pictures very obviously represent the literal concept of what happens when you use the scroll. The two pentagrams could even be considered pictoral, it's a picture accurately representing the forces of good or evil that are invoked when you use the scroll (assuming torment/holy word for them).
What I'm suggesting is that since the majority of icons are already this more pictoral/literal variety, things that are more symbolic or diagrammy simply feel a bit out-of-place because they're representing the concept in a distinctly different way to most icons.
Purely on the basis of that (and I realise there must also be other considerations!) The ones I am happiest with out of all the available sets are:
* New identify (although trunk is also very good)
* No version of teleport!
* New or trunk fear (can't decide between red or purple; I still think an "evil eye" might be better)
* No version of noise! (Perhaps a drum or other loud noise-making thing would fit the concept how compass and treasure chest do?)
* Remove curse - very difficult, but I think the trunk version is more literal, especially as it's attempting to show the opposite of trunk Curse, unfortunately it's not really a distinct enough difference)
* Summoning - old/trunk show a picture of something that's appeared over some sort of portal, personally I like my genie idea
* Enchant foo / vorpal - all versions, so we go with the ones that look prettiest. The only thing I'm starting to think is that Enchant II actually looks like a "curse" effect because red is normally associated with evil / bad.
* Torment - I think the best and most literal is a toss-up between voodoo doll and inverted pentagram. The old version could be considered literal in that it's someone so tormented they've gone purple. But it's a stretch and I've never really been sure what it's supposed to repesent.
* Random uselessness - all versions, but I agree the brighter colours of the old version were nicer.
* Curse foo - trunk versions; but I think the colours are a bit muddy and this makes the icon very indistinct, particularly for jewellery.
* Immolation - all versions, I agree that trunk is nice.
* Blink - No versions
* Mapping - Trunk
* Fog - I'm undecided between purple and grey, purple is probably prettier!
* Acquirement - Trunk
* Holy word - new version (pentagram, although would still prefer yellow)
* Vulnerability - new version
* Silence - No version - the most literal would be somebody with their mouth sewn up! (Or a zipper a la Beetlejuice)
* Amnesia - New version, even if it still looks like a butt
By no means a definitive opinion; and my theory has holes and ambiguities like any good theory