Looking for feedback... (tiles discussion)


If you are interested in helping with tiles, vaults, patches or documentation, this is the place for that.

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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 14:49

Looking for feedback... (tiles discussion)

First of all I decided to change inventory cells. I believe they should be much more smooth to provide comfortability and make objects pop up instead of blending with them.

Another thing is scrolls. I don't want to say that they are totally bad, but for some reasons they annoy the hell out of me. So I changed them too.

After this I looked at 'Missing Tiles' section and picked an Arachne (a half-human half-spider) to experiment with. There are several ones placed on screenshot and I don't quite sure which is best.

And the main question of tipic is this: should I try to contribute with this style and quality, or I should keep it to myself? I feel like I don't really fit in current pixelly style, but maybe I'm wrong...
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Reason: changed title to include mention of tiles

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 15:05

Re: Looking for feedback...

I do like the darker inventory grid, as well as the gradient on the highlight for equipped items. I think both of those changes would be a nice addition to the game.

There are a couple of open items for scrolls and brand/ego icons, and Arachne:
Base Tiles for Scrolls
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=5862

Smaller Brand / Ego Icons
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=4527

Arachne tile
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=5505

Knowledge bot entry for Arachne
http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=arachne

Keep in mind that Arachne is a unique, which means she should really stand out. She's also more of a caster than a warrior type, so I'd go with less armor and more mystical stuff.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 15:14

Re: Looking for feedback...

I'm not sure what's wrong with the current inventory background. Yours don't seem to blend well with the rest of the interface, but maybe it's just me not being used to them. For scrolls, you're not the only one disliking the current ones. I think there are a few submissions on mantis already. Yours are a bit too straight.
For arachne, there's potential. Note that it doesn't wear any armour, and it wields a staff of poison. For the staff, it might be better to just allow the tile to wield items so it's automatically added.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 15:45

Re: Looking for feedback...

SCROLLS
As it stands, the proposed scroll blends too much with the number and the Enchant Weapon 1 type. Maybe darken it a bit.
Alternately, reverse the angle of the scroll and see if placing the type of scroll in the bottom right is better.

BORDER
Your darkened border is good, but it looks too much like the "unused" border (see altar button on far right and the bottom right inventory borders). The "unused" would need to be changed in some way to compensate.

GRADIENT
I am not certain, but I think the green gradient needs to be bigger by a pixel or two.

ARACHNE
As said, it's a unique, but I like your overall design. Purple up the legs with some cool chitinous designs, add some red eyes or something, and maybe gossamer up the arms with sorcerous-looking cloth.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 16:09

Re: Looking for feedback...

Frankly, I do not remember Arachne at all. I just jumped at 'half-human half-spider' and did what I did. If it really 'she', spellcaster and unique then the whole design is wrong. This thing I made is regular arachnid warrior or something like that.
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Blades Runner

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 18:06

Re: Looking for feedback...

I'd kill for your gradient/border/scrolls. Those are delicious.

I think these are all improvements. Especially the scrolls.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 18:34

Re: Looking for feedback...

That's a much nicer Arachne, white_noise.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 18:49

Re: Looking for feedback...

Reversed the angle of the scrolls as XuaXua suggested. Added couple of pixels here and there to make scrolls little less 'straight' as galehar suggested. And I think this is the final edit. Spell pictograms can be changed but scroll are done. I don't see what else there is to change.
Now someone should tell me how to upload it correctly? :oops:
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 19:16

Re: Looking for feedback...

Separate them out properly per the wiki page on creating / submitting tiles, and create a bug on mantis specified to uploading graphics.

Arachne revision is very nice.
I'd love her to be a bit brighter / garish or stand out more. Maybe make the shaft of her staff a little less gray/plain. Tattoos on her bare arms or something. Chitinous chest.
The staff appears crooked in the middle.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 19:40

Re: Looking for feedback...

I doubt tattoo will be recognizable in such low resolution. Basically I fear that too many little details will make a mess. But staff need to be straighten for sure.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 20:24

Re: Looking for feedback...

white_noise wrote:I doubt tattoo will be recognizable in such low resolution. Basically I fear that too many little details will make a mess. But staff need to be straighten for sure.


I mean some sort of non-skin-coloured design. Not necessarily interpreted as tattoo, but something for the arms.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 20th July 2012, 20:46

Re: Looking for feedback...

I started to write the suggestion to mess with the levels/contrast to make the shape of the spider legs more apparent, but then I just did it. I like your work!

I recently suggested making new tiles for Cocytus to another contributor; the ones I submitted a little while ago leave something to be desired in my opinion, but I am just not feeling it any time I try to make something else.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 21st July 2012, 00:14

Re: Looking for feedback...

The one with the levels adjusted appeals to me.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 22nd July 2012, 15:34

Re: Looking for feedback...

Can someone, please, Identify this icons for me?
I am playing tiles first time and don't have them yet.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 22nd July 2012, 16:07

Re: Looking for feedback...

Thank you.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 22nd July 2012, 17:15

Re: Looking for feedback...

I redid some pictograms for my personal use. Some changes may look unnecessary, but I like it this way. Tell me which of them you do not like, and I'll use default ones before uploading the whole set.
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Blades Runner

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Post Sunday, 22nd July 2012, 18:00

Re: Looking for feedback...

Is there a possibility you could make the ring in the Curse Jewelry scroll easier to see? It always irked me that I couldn't tell what was was in that icon.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Sunday, 22nd July 2012, 19:15

Re: Looking for feedback...

I think Identify isn't distinct enough.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 05:35

Re: Looking for feedback...

Ring and magnifying glass were edited to be more distinct. Added new Amnesia icon, wondering what you think of it?..

Also, which color correspond to which level of enchant weapon? I know first is green, but what about the other ones? I may add another differentiation except (instead) the color.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 05:44

Re: Looking for feedback...

What does the amnesia icon mean?

Unholy Creation and Holy Word look better, definitely.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 05:46

Re: Looking for feedback...

enchant weapons:
Green is I, accuracy
Red is II, damage
Yellow is III, both accuracy and damage

The new ID looks good. Amnesia is to the right of silence, right? I think it looks ok, not sure what it is but I didn't know the old one either (blink, acq, ID, RC, recharge, and the enchant foo were the only old scrolls I tended to notice by icon).
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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 05:53

Re: Looking for feedback...

rchandra wrote:Amnesia is to the right of silence, right? I think it looks ok, not sure what it is but I didn't know the old one either

The old one is a crossed book/spellbook, I think.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 05:57

Re: Looking for feedback...

The old Amnesia icon was crossed book. The new one is clean (smooth) brain.

rchandra wrote:Green is I, accuracy
Red is II, damage
Yellow is III, both accuracy and damage

Thanks. And what blue sword means? I thought it one of the enchantment levels...
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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 06:01

Re: Looking for feedback...

Blue is scroll of vorpalize weapon.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 07:36

Re: Looking for feedback...

Here is what I did with swords:
I (accuracy) is green, long and pointy.
II (damage) is red, short and broad.
III (both accuracy and damage) is yellow, long and broad.
Vorpal weapon is blue with spark.

Not that big a difference, but still.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Monday, 23rd July 2012, 08:00

Re: Looking for feedback...

Back to this:

XuaXua wrote:BORDER
Your darkened border is good, but it looks too much like the "unused" border (see altar button on far right and the bottom right inventory borders). The "unused" would need to be changed in some way to compensate.

GRADIENT
I am not certain, but I think the green gradient needs to be bigger by a pixel or two.


BORDER
As I understand the game uses one tile for both, used and unused, cells. So changes with unused cell needed to be done by means of coding.

GRADIENT
In main.png they stuck in 28x28 squares. If I'll start to mess with this proportions, the tiles will come out crooked.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 5th August 2012, 09:40

Re: Looking for feedback...

I've messed with the stairs a little. Many probably will not notice the changes but they are there. Mainly I accented the edges and added some gradients. Oh, and I reversed the up-going stairs (for some reason it feels more comfortable this way). Also redid an entrance/exit. Don't know why, just did. And now I like it. But the main thing is golden coins. They were bugging me almost as much as scrolls, so I did a new ones. What do you think of all of this?

About the coins there is also an idea to differentiate the tiles by amounts. It's obviously not necessary but nice to have.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 5th August 2012, 12:02

Re: Looking for feedback...

Reversing the upstairs is weird since it no longer matches the downstairs. Have you checked trunk? There already are new coin tiles.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 5th August 2012, 12:38

Re: Looking for feedback...

galehar wrote:Reversing the upstairs is weird since it no longer matches the downstairs.

Hmm. Didn't think of that. You're right.

galehar wrote:Have you checked trunk? There already are new coin tiles.

Now I did. And I like new coins much more than old ones.

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Post Monday, 6th August 2012, 21:42

Re: Looking for feedback...

white_noise wrote:Here is what I did with swords:
I (accuracy) is green, long and pointy.
II (damage) is red, short and broad.
III (both accuracy and damage) is yellow, long and broad.
Vorpal weapon is blue with spark.

Not that big a difference, but still.


In general I think all these new versions are better than the old icons; they're clearer, neater, better defined! Some, however, could perhaps be improved even further:

  • Fear - I never understood this one, is it supposed to be a scary blue ghost face? Personally I know to recognise the icon rather than understanding how it's supposed to relate to the scroll! Perhaps just a pair of glowing demonic eyes (without the mouth) would be a bit scarier (maybe in red/yellow colours).
  • I like how the holy word icon is an inversion of the summoning scroll - but thematically I think it makes more sense that Torment is the "evil" version of Holy Word, so maybe you should use the red pentagram for Torment (I don't think torment had a good icon anyway) - then something else for summoning. Additionally, I would use yellow for the holy pentagram, since that's the colour I usually see associated with holiness in Crawl.
  • Your new Teleport icon unfortunately says "invisibility" to me (which obviously isn't a scroll, but new players wouldn't realise that). But it's hard to know how to differentiate Teleport from Blink without hitting this problem.
  • The "Amnesia" brain unfortunately looks quite a lot like butt cheeks :oops: - if you make it greyer and really lumpy instead of smooth you could avoid this
  • Vulnerability - I see where the new version is going but maybe it should be more clearly a broken shield - maybe completely shattered / fragmented, and have it glowing a little to convey that it's magical protection which is being destroyed
  • Noise perhaps doesn't need the exclamation mark?
  • Silence - this is the only case where I'm not sure if the new one is really an improvement on the old; but I can't think of anything better!
  • Magic Mapping - it's sort of a bit dull and grey and not very "magic" looking! It could have a tiny version of something like a pirate treasure map instead?
  • Curse Weapon/Armour/Jewellery. These look very cramped and dull now compared to all the rest. My idea for these is to drop the little skull, and make the weapon/armour/ring blackened with sort of black tendrils coming off them. Does that make sense? So "Curse Weapon" will look very similar to Enchant Weapon scrolls, but with a blacked out sword instead of glowing. By "terndrils" I mean a but like how Ereshkigal looks?
  • Vorpalise Weapon - I like the idea but I think it's too big, should be perhaps only slightly bigger than the enchant weapon icons (literally by a pixel or two) then make the blade look even more different, not just a bit more pointed; e.g. frilly bits on the blade, or horned/spiked handle. Something like that!

Well, that ended up as a lot more suggestions than I planned; but you did ask for feedback! ;) Great work so far anyway.

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Post Monday, 6th August 2012, 21:53

Re: Looking for feedback...

Oh - also, it's probably worth noting that in trunk there are completely different icons on all the scrolls! Some I'm less keen on than others; between those and yours we might be able to get the best possible set.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Tuesday, 7th August 2012, 14:32

Re: Looking for feedback...

mumra, if they going to change scrolls as well, it pretty much everything I ever wanted. The majority of new icons is better than old ones, and others can be tolerated. But if there going to be merging of some kind I am definetly ready to edit some icons (at least the promising ones).
...

And now to the other thing...
Is this picture worthy to be one of the loading screens?
Not really pixel-artsy, I know, but still. I tried to make it old-schoolish.
A newborn char at the entrance of dungeon. One step before the adventure of his life. It kinda summarize my feelings about starting a new game.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 7th August 2012, 15:02

Re: Looking for feedback...

Just because we've updated icons doesn't mean we don't want to improve them further. Improvements are always welcome! And this loading screen is beautiful! Thanks!
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 7th August 2012, 22:36

Re: Looking for feedback...

Yeah that loading screen is really good. Depicts the experience of the vast majority of players: unprepared novice enters chambers of death.
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Post Tuesday, 7th August 2012, 22:54

Re: Looking for feedback...

The new title screen is in.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 10:27

Re: Looking for feedback...

First of all a little disclaimer. Almost all icons here are edited version of old ones (with little exception). I don't know the author, but I certainly do not pretend for any credit. If I say "my icons" I do it to differentiate them from the ones in released version (or the trunk).

Ok. Here I'll try to merge all sets of scroll icons to make the best possible solution. I don't want to even start with brands or any other icons before this is done. Please make your suggestions like mumra did. I may not agree with all of them but it's sure helpful. And if majority will think the same way I'll do as you ask anyway. So...

1. About basic scrolls... Rolled scrolls by ontoclasm are gorgeous. The only bad thing about them is that they are little too flashy. They presented as complete objects already, but I feel like scrolls need to be more like background for icons. As alternative, unidentified scroll can be rolled up and sealed, tried scrolls can be still rolled up but unsealed, and identified got to be open. You can see some variants of my rolled scrolls in attachment.

2. Identify icon is obvious, but I think that my magnifying glass little more recognizable/visible.

3. Teleport is troublesome. The old icon is horrible. The one in trunk little better but still do not tell much. My version is at least have a man figure and shows some process. Although it really can be seen as invisibility of some sort. Any new ideas are welcome.

4. New fear is better, I guess. But I don't like it purple. For now I made red just to get feedback.

5. I don't think that exclamation sign is excess in noisy icon, but it sure can be erased. Tell me what you think of that.

6.12.13.27 About curses. I like the old ones with the scull much more than the new ones. They are more informative, more recognizable and plainly better looking. In my variant they are almost unchanged, but I erased the darkish glow, which is messy.

7. The one and only icon that fits the summonong is pentagram. In this case I am most certain. I guess on old icon and the trunky one the creature comes out of pentagram too, but it's totally unrecognizable.

8.9.19.22. All enchanting icons are basically the same, so we just need to pick the ones that looks better. I prefer mine as they are less messy (or just bigger, which makes them more recognizable).

10. I did a new blood splat for torment but not sure about it. What I sure about, though, is that old purple one is better than plain scull .

11. I think that old icon of random uselesness is much better than trunky one. I like the coloring :)

14. New immolation is good because the old one looks like burning scroll.

15. New blink is too abstract. It's just a twirly thing, which saying nothing. The one with the arrow must be better no matter how ugly it is.

16. New magic mapping with a compass is perfect.

17. I like purple fog. It's little more visible. But basically they are the same.

18. I like old treasure chest for acquirement. You just can't make it any better.

20. Don't really want to add more details to vorpalise weapon icon. It's going to be a mess.

21. Don't really care about recharging icon. I think they are the same.

23. New holy word is better.

24. My cracked shield for vulnerability is better, I think. And as for a mumra's idea, I think that completely shattered shield will be too messy. I make the shield little bigger, though.

25. Both, old and new, silence icons signifies to me that someone saying something. I know there are just dots, but you can't be sure with such low resolution. I tried to make my icon as countermeasure to noise but I'm pretty sure that I've failed.

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.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 13:41

Re: Looking for feedback...

white_noise wrote:First of all a little disclaimer. Almost all icons here are edited version of old ones (with little exception). I don't know the author, but I certainly do not pretend for any credit. If I say "my icons" I do it to differentiate them from the ones in released version (or the trunk).

That's perfectly fine. It's the whole point of open source software, pick the work of others, improve it and make it available.
I don't have the time to comment one each of them right now but just from a quick glance:
I don't like the blood splat for torment. I like the inverted pentacle much more for it and something else for summoning. Big icons are fine, but make sure there's still room for the quantity number which can have 2 digits.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 14:21

Re: Looking for feedback...

galehar wrote:Big icons are fine, but make sure there's still room for the quantity number which can have 2 digits.

Digits can overlap the swords. Enchant weapon III in particular. But it still looks pretty neat and I doubt anyone can collect so many of them to create double digits. But it's a nice feeling to find a scroll crossed with a huge golden sword :) All other icons should be fine.

And yea, torment is a riddle. Maybe a woodoo doll will do...
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 14:41

Re: Looking for feedback...

I made teleport and blink abstract because, as far as I can tell, there's no way you're going to make tiny stick figures show teleportation in a legible way. Yours does a better job than some of the old ones, but at some point it's not worth trying to cram a full explanation in when a symbol will do -- for Fear we could do a really complex drawing showing the player in the middle and some monsters running away and oh we need to show that they can resist and that ranged enemies will continue to fire and... but no, a scary face is enough. It gets the point across, and all that other info gets attached to the symbol once you learn what it is. I figure it's better to just pick an easily-recognized symbol, and then be consistent about using it and let players learn that "purple spiral = teleport." The runes of Zot are lumps of stuff with meaningless runes drawn on them; their sprites tell you nothing about their function. But you still know what they do, don't you?

My compass icon for magic mapping is (I think) a good example of this. The existing one showed a little diagram of the dungeon, and in my first try (which you can see on Mantis) I tried to not only draw a dungeon map, but show the wave of blue moving across it. Tons of info in a tiny space... way too much in fact. It was confusing and nobody would have figured it out. A compass is much better - it's only tangentially related to what the scroll does, but it's memorable and legible, and that's what matters.

Oh, and the icons aren't completely divorced from blinking and teleporting themselves. All teleportation leaves behind a swirly purple cloud, and blinking is a shorter, brighter, zoomed in version of teleport.


Anyhow, your icons are pretty good. I dislike on principle having a mix of sizes and super-saturated colors, but I guess it could be made to work. Your base scroll icon looks a little flat and plastic to me; parchment has texture and curves.

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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 16:23

Re: Looking for feedback...

ontoclasm wrote:parchment has texture and curves.

Except that you can't fit much texture or curves in 32x32 resolution. Especially if half of it taking icon and a digits. I mean you can try, but you'll fail. And even if you'll manage to draw a perfectly naturalistic scroll it still gonna have the flaw of bringing too much attention to itself. It shouldn't have too many details, or texture noise, or excessive coloring. It should be smooth and calmly colored for contrasting with icons. Also, the situation with the scrolls is not the same as with other items and brands. Here we do not need to show any info about the scroll except the spell it contains. So picture of the scroll need to step back a little and pass the icon in front. This is a reason for bigger, brighter icons and background-ish scrolls. At least such is my opinion.

Ok. Here is a variant of teleport and blink. As well, as couple of new torments. Please make your opinions.
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Post Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 19:02

Re: Looking for feedback...

I agree with everything ontoclasm said. Sometimes, a good icon is better than a complicated pictogram, like for blink and teleport. The scroll looks flat and plastic. And I insist that the red pentagram is a much better fit for torment than for unholy creation.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 06:05

Re: Looking for feedback...

It would be ok to use pentagram for torment if there would be something better for summoning. But for now I see very bad summoning icon, and pretty standard one for torment (both, old and new one can do the job). So I don't see the point in swapping icons as long, as it leaves us with old summoning. By the way, you may grow into last torment icon (bloody deformed face) with time, as I did since yesterday. It's hard to identify, but it looks tormentish (although may look too much like fear now).

For tele/blink I like variant with the arrows. They bring maximum info, but still simple and looks a bit nicer. Spirals, I agree, looks better but they would make me (as player) confused and annoyed for a while.

Little edit of tele spiral in attachment, in case you decide to use them.

Some scroll variations as well. Pick one.
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The change is color gradation. Makes it little more bright and interesting.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 12:31

Re: Looking for feedback...

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 :lol:

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 :)
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 12:57

Re: Looking for feedback...

mumra wrote:* Silence - No version - the most literal would be somebody with their mouth sewn up!

On trunk icon a guy actually has gagged mouth. But it looks like wide smile until you zoom it x10 or more :)
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 13:10

Re: Looking for feedback...

white_noise wrote:It would be ok to use pentagram for torment if there would be something better for summoning. But for now I see very bad summoning icon, and pretty standard one for torment (both, old and new one can do the job). So I don't see the point in swapping icons as long, as it leaves us with old summoning. By the way, you may grow into last torment icon (bloody deformed face) with time, as I did since yesterday. It's hard to identify, but it looks tormentish (although may look too much like fear now).

Good point. I like the holy word /torment symmetry, but there are not exactly opposite, so it might be a false good idea. The pentagram is strongly associated with summoning, and I also like very much the deformed face icon.

white_noise wrote:For tele/blink I like variant with the arrows. They bring maximum info, but still simple and looks a bit nicer. Spirals, I agree, looks better but they would make me (as player) confused and annoyed for a while.

The thing with teleport and blink is that they come in many forms. Scroll, but also trap, ability, spell, ring and there's control teleport too. So a symbolic icon has the advantage that you can use it for all those things with a little variation.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 13:10

Re: Looking for feedback...

white_noise wrote:
mumra wrote:* Silence - No version - the most literal would be somebody with their mouth sewn up!

On trunk icon a guy actually has gagged mouth. But it looks like wide smile until you zoom it x10 or more :)


So it does :) I guess it could work without the speech bubble and make the head much bigger and the gag more prominent.

What I don't like so much about the speech bubble is that "dot dot dot" doesn't necessarily mean silence. In English grammar, sure, it usually means a long pause. But sometimes it's also used in the context of "there was stuff here but we trimmed it out to make this quote read better" and so on. So the scroll icon could actually be interpreted as "this person is saying something but we didn't have enough pixels to write real words", i.e. the very opposite of silence.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 15:35

Re: Looking for feedback...

So, what do you think of alternative scrolls, guys? Second and third variants are not so plastic and kinda textured (at least noisy).
Also, new silence. It must be it. White gag makes it look like teeth, red one like open mouth, black like Terence/Philip from South Park. Blue works.
And I changed color of fear again to differentiate it from torment.
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Post Thursday, 9th August 2012, 19:31

Re: Looking for feedback...

I think I like the third one the most, but the fourth is good too. For fear, I like mumra's evil eyes idea. Silence is quite good. For remove curse, maybe just the skull with a red cross would be easier to read. Amnesia is really hard to illustrate, but I don't like the brain much. I think I prefer the current one.
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