Why do I wish to have design guidelines?Recently I played a few levels in newly created styles and got confused what objects were exits, traps, teleporters or something completely else. I certainly recognize the difficulty in making good objects and I know there cannot be a set of hard rules that distinguish bad objects from good objects.
So I would like these design guidelines have two functions:
- Give style designers hints what to change, if they are unsure how to make their object better recognizable.
- Warn style designers when there is a danger that their objects can mislead the player and tell them when to be extra careful with their objects.
And please always keep in mind that there are always stupid users like me, who don't get the reference to pop culture or haven't played the other game you ripped the graphics from. So please do not rely solely on such references when determining an object's function.
Exit guidelines:- It looks like a building
- It has an open door that is lemming-size (usually 6-7 pixels wide and 8 pixels high)
- There are steps leading up to the door
- The interior of the door is not black, but colored lemming-friendly (usually a blue sky over green grass)
- There are animated torches, flags or similar parts at the top
Notable offenders in existing styles are some of the L2 exits:
- The flagpole in Sports has none of these characteristics.
- The highland exit has no door at all, while at least keeping the bulding characteristic.
- The Space exit is a doorframe (see my characterization of teleporters below), not a building. The door a lot bigger than a lemming and of the same size as the door in the airlock-trap (see Simon's post). The interior at least signals that it is a gateway to a completely different place, even though it doesn't look as positive as it could be.
- A very similar problem has the L3 biolab exit.
- One of the exits in the LemPlus Horror style is just a doorframe with black interior (which makes it very similar to teleporters). At least it satisfies guidelines 3) and 5).
Most other L2 exits miss only one of the characteristics: Either the steps leading up to the door or the positively colored interior. I think this is fine.
Teleporters and Receivers design guidelines:As Simon already noted, there are no distinctive features that are unique to teleporters and receivers. So for now there are only secondary characteristics to distinguish teleporters/receivers from exits:
- It looks like a doorframe
- It has a door that is larger than a lemming (usually at least 12 pixels high)
- There are no steps are leading up to the door
- The interior of the door is black or at least does not hint at a gate-way to a completely unrelated place
How does this characterization fit existing teleporters? Let's check:
- Marble: Slightly too bulky to be considered a doorframe, but frames a large black door.
- LemPlus-Space: Satisfies everything, even though the door is only
slightly larger than a lemming.
- Purple and Martian: Similar to the LemPlus-Space teleporter, but the interior is not completely black. It still manages to have a more-or-less neutral look, so this is fine.
- Psychedelic and Circuit: Satisfies everything.
- L2-Space: Again an L2-object that isn't similar to any other of its kind. But to be fair, the "IN" and "OUT" signs are pretty good hints, at least once the player is aware that there is not only an "IN"-object, but an "OUT"-object as well.
Teleporters versus Receivers guidelines:There isn't yet any rule I can see that can be applied to distinguish many teleporters and their receivers. So here are two possibilities that make their function very clear to me:
- Teleporters have the word "IN", receivers have the word "OUT" written on them (this would help as well to distinguish them from exits)
- Teleporters have an open door, receivers have a closed door*
Here is how existing teleporters/receivers do:
- Marble, Purple and Martian: Satisfy guideline 2).
- Psychedelic and Circuit: Has a lighter color scheme, but satisfies neither guideline.
- LemPlus-Space: This has no difference at all. This is very bad, though I would guess that these teleporters were originally created to be two-way-teleporters.
- L2-Space: Satisfies guideline 1).
*) Simon claims that this is not a good distinction. I think it certainly
helps. Whether or not it is sufficient in itself depends on the the relation of teleporter size to door size in my opinion: If the (closed) door uses 50% of the space of the teleporter (like in the Purple or Matian style), the difference should be pretty visible. If on the other hand the door uses only 15% of the object space (like in the Marble style), this might be not enough itself.
Traps:Can be anything, but should satisfy:
- They usually have no doors and no framing part with empty interior
- They differ a lot in appearance compared to normal terrain
- Even when inactive they should project a certain sense of danger to lemmings
- Even L2 does all of this pretty well, with the flowery exception in the highland style.
- The dragon trap in the medieval style and the grabber in the cave style are barely recognizable when inactive, but the very cute animations. So they still manage to leave the player with a positive impression.
- This is inverted with the spider in the outdoor style: It has even moving eyes and looks very predatory, but in fact is pure terrain! Bad!
- The pipe trap in the
Dune tileset was problematic before it got the red exclamation mark, because it looked very similar to normal terrain and did not project danger.
- The stomper in the wooden frame in the
factory style does not (yet) follow guideline 1), so can be confused with either exits or teleporters.