Poll
Question:
How do you find it?
Option 1: I like it, it's good.
votes: 10
Option 2: I don't mind it, but I prefer the classic style.
votes: 0
Option 3: I don't like it at all.
votes: 0
Just interested to see how people are finding it. It is a major change, but after some playing with it I'm starting to like it more than the old style.
I would replace "good" with "excellent" in the poll. This new features are far more user-friendly (the new info panel, the new NXP format, etc.). :thumbsup:
Huge improvement. I'm not raging anymore about forgetting the preview stats during play.
People have been asking about the rescue blink. The negative sign of the flag's number moves the digits further to the right, away from the flag, closer to the unrelated time icon.
Inspired me to draw this. (http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/nl-winning-cup.png) Could omit the minus sign, and, after winninng, draw this winner's cup instead of the flag.
No problem adding bells and whistles to winning, you might even flash the number a couple times. It stroke me as odd to have an option for such a minor visual detail, because it lost its original purpose, notifying about the win.
-- Simon
I would rather avoid adding any further icons until MAIN.DAT as a whole is dropped and replaced with individual image files (thus enabling loading defaults and substituting custom ones where present, rather than requiring any NXP to contain every image in a single MAIN.DAT file).
A more practical change at this point may be to always place the negative sign hard-up against the flag icon (currently, it will only be hard-up against it if the value - including any negative sign if applicable - is 4 digits; this would only happen with save requirements >= 100 lemmings). This is also true for the other two stats - there'll be a space unless they're four digits long.
No problem, do as you wish. Since 1.37, there is no urgency here anymore. :8():
-- Simon
For the most part it's nice. I like the icons except:
the timer icon. At first I didn't even recognize what it was; a stopwatch? I remember reading a reason for his but I remember.
Personally; I'd prefer an option to disable the clock at all during an un-timed level. I usually glance at the clock quickly and don't even realize it's counting up or down sometimes. It's not a big deal but I liked not having any timer there at all.
For this reason, the different icon was suggested - a stopwatch for infinite time levels, which counts up; and an hourglass for time-limited levels, which counts down.
If people are finding this confusing, then perhaps an option to disable it altogether in non-time-limited levels should indeed be added. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like it if you could try it out a bit longer and see if it remains problematic once you've gotten a bit more used to it; if it does, then I can look at adding this option.
I love the stopwatch icon :thumbsup:
A suggestion: to help remind the player that the "in" count is always relative (you got confused by this during one level of MobiLems), it could display "+15" instead of just "15" when you've already saved above the requirement.
... or just display the number in red if it's negative and in the usual green if enough lemmings are saved.
That doesn't address the problem I raised (maybe you don't agree that it's a problem?) -- when only "15" is displayed, even if one knows the system, one can momentarily forget and think it means you have saved 15 lemmings, as opposed to 15 above the requirement. Also, your suggestion would be more opaque to new players, whereas a negative number that counts upwards to 0 is pretty clear as to what it means.
Sorry, I meant to keep the current system (with the minus sign and upwards counting) and only add a color component to it. So if one sees the "15", the green color is another reminder that everything is fine., contrary to a red "-15".