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What are the best settings for theme_settings & screen?

A topic by auraes created Jul 14, 2020 Views: 198 Replies: 10
Viewing posts 1 to 2
Submitted

What would be the best theme and screen settings for my game to display in good quality on the desktop and mobile?
There are so many options I don't understand. I currently have some:

      theme_settings {
         redescribe = auto_beta       
         capitalization = original
         textbox_capitalization = original
      }
      screen {
         snap_mode = full_snap
         paragraph_spacing_multiplier = 0.3         
      }
Host

It's a tricky subject.

Your game already suits mobile very well I think but could maybe be enhanced with a bespoke font.

Maybe use an 8 bit font. To try it out just select menu/import then choose a TTF file.

I think your game would suit a "pen" colour of #fff, and keep the other colour settings as they are.

For 8 bit fonts as above, maybe choose a paragraph spacing multiplier of 1.

Check out the fonts here....

https://damieng.com/typography/zx-origins/

There are lots of things to try. You can also use multiple themes and allow the player to select at runtime via one of the ask commands and set theme.

Check out THE BEAST 30TH ANNIVERSARY for an example of theme choices at the beginning of the game.

Submitted

Thank you.

I'm keeping the 'bamburgh' font, and I've changed a few colours.

Host

Just a suggestion, but it looks like you have set your yousee_item_pen to be grey. It looks a bit odd to have two shades of white in the main location text.

Did you set something like this:

         yousee_item_pen = #ccc

Or this:

         yousee_item_pen = 7

Maybe just have the item list the same colour as the main pen, or choose a different colour?

If you prefer it the current way, don't worry about it :-)

Submitted

It was done on purpose, but it wasn't necessarily a good idea; that's what we call the Christmas tree effect: too many different colours, too many fonts and so on.

Host

Looks great now.

It's not a criticism at all but maybe the only thing is that the other text colours are not quite as bright as the white. Maybe making all your colours vibrant fits better with the game (keep the colours, but use the vibrant variants).

  • 11 = bright magenta
  • 12 = bright green
  • 13 = bright cyan
  • 14 = bright yellow

In addition, do try out these settings, and see what you think.

"scanlines" is really a temporary hack, and not a shader based implementation, but it makes the bamburgh font look a lot more attractive (in my opinion), and also it can give some texture to the large pixels too. I do plan to use a shader based implementation in later versions of Adventuron.

      theme_settings {
         shader                 = scanlines
         textbox_capitalization = upper
      }


You can also try scanlines out during the game, by typing CRT ON or CRT OFF. I usually switch it on myself. Scanlines will not be enabled on mobile currently as the screen is too small for the current implementation to work well.

Submitted

I made the changes except for textbox_capitalization, I don't really like capital letters.

Can I change the content of the Parser-type message?

>CREDITS
Parser type : Sometimes may require more than two-words.
Host

That's to inform the player if you use features like noun2_is "" or adjecitve2_is "" or preposition_is "".

Currently the message is not configurable.

I guess it's being detected like that if you test yourself for a third word.

I can think of a solution to this, but it'll take a little time to arrive.

Host

One solution is to match CREDITS yourself, and you can put an entirely bespoke message there.

Chris

Submitted

If you do, you can still see the system credits using *CREDITS.

Host

Hi, 

To solve this do not use the following in your game.

or adjective1_is "" or adjective2_is "" noun2_is "" or adjecitve2_is "" or preposition_is ""  or verb2_is "" or verb_is ""

If you want to detect if the player is using more than two words, use the following logic

: match "_ _" {
   : if (inputs() > 2) {
      : print "Maximum of two words please.";
      : done;
   }
}

Regards,

Chris