Responding here to keep the
code discussions out of the release thread.
The new enhanced status bar is a great addition to SL, nice work!
Please can you let me know whereabouts this is in the code?
I'd like to see if I can combine the "required" and "exited" info into one bar entry, so that it shows a minus number in red until the save requirement is reached, and then continues to count up as more lemmings exit. NeoLemmix shows the information in this way, and it definitely seems to make more sense than having the two numbers separate (especially since the top menu bar shows the number of lems to be saved anyway).
I'd also like to see if I can modify the original status bar to display the number of lemmings remaining in the hatch. If you like this idea, it could also be added to the Enhanced bar as well. This is what I'd be aiming for eventually (the current Enhanced status bar could show this information using the existing icons that you've already added):
IN: lemmings still in hatch, yet to spawn (hatch icon)
OUT: lemmings on the screen (lemming face icon)
HOME: lemmings saved - save requirement (exit icon)
Alternatively, the save requirement could be left off the status bar altogether, and HOME could simply display the number of lems saved. The red figures could instead be used to show when too many lemmings have died; i.e. the OUT number could turn red if there aren't enough total lemmings available in the level for it to be completed (taking hatch lems into account as well).
This would removed the need for minus figures, and also removes potential confusion when a player has saved X lemmings, but the OUT display shows X - n (n being the level's save requirement). This can occasionally cause confusion in NeoLemmix, until one remembers that the display is showing the total saved - the save requirement.
Check out
/src/lemmini/LemminiPanel.java:line 801The original code is surprisingly simple... it is just a text string (converted to the green lemming font), with appropriate space padding to fit where needed. (That's what the
%-15s means, for example... a string with 15 spaces padding)).
There's some leftover dead code where I tried to put the
Required total into *that* line, but it didn't look great.
To use the icons (and the red highlighting) I chose to draw each element individually, then place it in the appropriate place, so there's a lot more code needed. I also needed to add a new graphic file to root.lzp, for those 4 icons. (Technically, it didn't need to be included in root.lzp -- I could have just included it in my local resource path in the right folder structure or it's own .lzp file, but for the redistributable, it was much easier to just have it in root.lzp.)
I don't mean to be dismissive to your ideas, so please forgive me if it comes across that way. A lot of what you're saying were things I considered before settling on what I did for the status bar. I'd like to take a second and remark on them. That said though, I know you've been involved in the SuperLemmini community far longer than I have (and have been very welcoming to me, so thank you). I know you have a bunch of ideas you've wanted to see implemented for a long time, and I'm happy to help you implement them yourself however I'm able. SuperLemminiToo is really just changes to things that stuck in my own craw.
Honestly, I'm not really concerned with with NeoLemmix does. I admit I've only used it once -- and that was before they added hi-res lemmings, but the whole thing felt over-cluttered and unnecessarily complicated ... like just 1 bridge too far removed from the original lemmings I grew up with. Almost like a Lemmings Speed-Runners tool or something. I'm making changes to SuperLemmini that I personally feel lend themselves more to casual players with a nostalgic familiarity with the original Lemmings -- or at least to
me as a casual player who can be quite nostalgic. Negative numbers in the status bar don't really feel intuitive to me, but to each their own.
Technically speaking, as you mentioned, the Required number isn't needed on the game screen anyway, because it is there in the title bar... and they tell you in the intro screen, too. But who really reads the intro screens anyway? And the title bar is more akin to Metadata as far as I'm concerned. It's outside the game window and if a fullscreen mode is ever implemented then the Metadata dissappears. Truthfully, it is essential information that you need during the course of the level, so it should be there in
some capacity.
I like showing it as a fixed "required" number because that's how it's shown everywhere else... metadata in the title bar, line on the intro screen. If you have "Never show percentages" turned off then that number shows as a percentage. I like it for those connections to the original, rather than a complicated backwards counter or something.
Also, turning the Out number red if too many have died doesn't feel right either... and what about edge cases where technically you have enough lemmings out, but one of them is a blocker and you have no way to make him a walker again? Should the engine detect those possibilities? Too much programming guess work for something I personally feel doesn't help the player anyway.
Even the icons themselves, yes... the exit icon would be equally appropriate for "Required" as for "OUT" but the SNES/Genesis used them for "OUT" so in keeping with that continuity, that's what I did too. The Lemming head is a pretty weak connection to "Required" but oh well. With it being a fixed number that matches what's said on the intro screen I assume new players will catch on to what it means quick enough.