Hi all!
I designed some simple SnakeByte's levels for a child, he's three years old and he's gone crazy for the snake. He can play good enough, but the main interface is too difficult to manage for him, considered that he can't read.
I would suggest to modify it in this way: remove the "start game" voice, change the behaviour of the "level" voice so that pressing the "enter" key will start the game, and also add the voice "change levelset". Leaving the "level" voice separated from the others, so that it can be individuated at a first glance and preferably below the level preview, would be a great addon for this mod.
I know that Rocks'n'Diamonds is fully customizable, but I haven't got that skill, so if someone has some time to waste coding it for me or explaining me how to do the trick...
Thanks to Holger Schemel for the wonderful RnD and to Alan Bond for the spectacular SB, and a special thank to anyone who will help me with this task.
Simplified interface for children
Moderators: Flumminator, Zomis
-
Kugurrah
Another little addon for the simplified version
I forgot to add another little mod that I'd like to see.
Is it possible to end the game if the player is stuck with no chance to free himself? Example: a long snake that reaches a dead end.
I know that there is the possibility to reach a temporary stuck position, in this case the game should not end.
Thank you for your time.
Is it possible to end the game if the player is stuck with no chance to free himself? Example: a long snake that reaches a dead end.
I know that there is the possibility to reach a temporary stuck position, in this case the game should not end.
Thank you for your time.
> I would suggest to modify it in this way: remove the "start game" voice,
> change the behaviour of the "level" voice so that pressing the "enter" key
> will start the game, and also add the voice "change levelset". Leaving the
> "level" voice separated from the others, so that it can be individuated at
> a first glance and preferably below the level preview, would be a great
> addon for this mod.
I must admit that I'm not sure if I understood this right.
Do you mean by "voice" to add sound files to the menu options that speak the menu option text?
> Is it possible to end the game if the player is stuck with no chance to free
> himself? Example: a long snake that reaches a dead end.
Yep: Just press the "Escape" key or press the "stop" button on the game control panel!
> change the behaviour of the "level" voice so that pressing the "enter" key
> will start the game, and also add the voice "change levelset". Leaving the
> "level" voice separated from the others, so that it can be individuated at
> a first glance and preferably below the level preview, would be a great
> addon for this mod.
I must admit that I'm not sure if I understood this right.
Do you mean by "voice" to add sound files to the menu options that speak the menu option text?
> Is it possible to end the game if the player is stuck with no chance to free
> himself? Example: a long snake that reaches a dead end.
Yep: Just press the "Escape" key or press the "stop" button on the game control panel!
Re: Simplified interface for children
I think this is a very good idea, because I know that many new players don't know how to change levelset at all.Kugurrah wrote:...and also add the voice "change levelset". Leaving the "level" voice separated from the others, so that it can be individuated at a first glance
(I assume that by 'voice' you mean 'option' or 'text', but a voice that speaks the options might be good as well for your 3-year-old)
BTW: putting a 3-year-old at RND and SnakeBite... impressive
Like Holger said, you can press ESC or the Stop button to quit the level, but I doubt that this could be done automatically if there's no way to finish the level - that would require some more CE Techniques, but I'll investigate that. It could be possible actually... but in the current SnakeBite levelset, you'll have to press ESC each time the snake is stuck.
-
Kugurrah
Errata Corrige :)
I'm sorry for my English, I commit such errors!
For "voice" I meant "list item" as Zomis supposed - in Italian they have the same meanings.
By the way I would ask for an Italian version of the interface as well.
For completing my first posts, I am a programmer - just a humble Visual Basic coder - so if there is a manual or some easy documentation for learning the things I need, I would start studying ASAP.
Thank you again.
For "voice" I meant "list item" as Zomis supposed - in Italian they have the same meanings.
By the way I would ask for an Italian version of the interface as well.
For completing my first posts, I am a programmer - just a humble Visual Basic coder - so if there is a manual or some easy documentation for learning the things I need, I would start studying ASAP.
Thank you again.
-
Kugurrah
Alternative Path
I was thinking that the mod I need should not be too hard to achieve, let's resummary: I need to change the aspect and the behaviour of the main screen.
If the data related to the option list (positions, behaviours, graphics and texts) is defined in the source code, I am out of the games.
If, otherwise, there are different runtime data files for each feature, I could - I should - edit them.
Which is the case?
If the data related to the option list (positions, behaviours, graphics and texts) is defined in the source code, I am out of the games.
If, otherwise, there are different runtime data files for each feature, I could - I should - edit them.
Which is the case?
> For completing my first posts, I am a programmer - just a humble Visual
> Basic coder - so if there is a manual or some easy documentation for
> learning the things I need, I would start studying ASAP.
Unfortunately, there is not much "real" documentation available for R'n'D.
Fortunately, there are a *lot* of really good examples available how to do the various things! :-)
So if you (like me) best learn by looking at examples that work, you won't have any problems to reach your goal (especially as you have programming skills and therefore probably won't have problems with understanding and editing configuration files like those used in R'n'D).
> I was thinking that the mod I need should not be too hard to achieve, let's
> resummary: I need to change the aspect and the behaviour of the main
> screen.
Yep, that's possible solely with configuration files!
> If the data related to the option list (positions, behaviours, graphics and
> texts) is defined in the source code, I am out of the games.
No, editing the code and recompiling it is not necessary here. :-)
> If, otherwise, there are different runtime data files for each feature,
> I could - I should - edit them.
All you need is the file "graphicsinfo.conf". Look at arbitrary level sets by Alan Bond or Juergen Bonhagen, as both make extended use of all the possibilities. Especially Juergen Bonhagen's new level sets have good examples which show how to remove the text from the main screen and replace it with graphics on the background image.
> By the way I would ask for an Italian version of the interface as well.
Although R'n'D unfortunately currently does not support internationalisation of the texts used in its menus, you could of course create an Italian version of R'n'D using the method described above.
If you need any further help, feel free to ask here! :-)
> Basic coder - so if there is a manual or some easy documentation for
> learning the things I need, I would start studying ASAP.
Unfortunately, there is not much "real" documentation available for R'n'D.
Fortunately, there are a *lot* of really good examples available how to do the various things! :-)
So if you (like me) best learn by looking at examples that work, you won't have any problems to reach your goal (especially as you have programming skills and therefore probably won't have problems with understanding and editing configuration files like those used in R'n'D).
> I was thinking that the mod I need should not be too hard to achieve, let's
> resummary: I need to change the aspect and the behaviour of the main
> screen.
Yep, that's possible solely with configuration files!
> If the data related to the option list (positions, behaviours, graphics and
> texts) is defined in the source code, I am out of the games.
No, editing the code and recompiling it is not necessary here. :-)
> If, otherwise, there are different runtime data files for each feature,
> I could - I should - edit them.
All you need is the file "graphicsinfo.conf". Look at arbitrary level sets by Alan Bond or Juergen Bonhagen, as both make extended use of all the possibilities. Especially Juergen Bonhagen's new level sets have good examples which show how to remove the text from the main screen and replace it with graphics on the background image.
> By the way I would ask for an Italian version of the interface as well.
Although R'n'D unfortunately currently does not support internationalisation of the texts used in its menus, you could of course create an Italian version of R'n'D using the method described above.
If you need any further help, feel free to ask here! :-)
> Ah yes, internationalization... are there any plans for it?
Well... There are plans for i18n in R'n'D as in "it's on my TODO list, which reaches from Berlin to Waszawa", if you know what I mean... ;-)
> Or is it already there and I just didn't notice?
No, it's not there yet. (What I meant was just that if you set all texts to "[NONE]" in the config files, and do all texts as graphics in the background image, you're of course free to do whatever i18n you want... ;-) )
> In any case, I'll happily do the Polish translation. ;-)
Yeah, I know, and I will probably come back to you for this one day. :-)
But currently there's not only the problem that the font is not even full 7-bit ASCII, but would support ISO-Latin-1 theoretically -- but even this would not be sufficient for a Polish translation (ISO-Latin-2). There's no polish "L" in my font, for example... :-o
Well... There are plans for i18n in R'n'D as in "it's on my TODO list, which reaches from Berlin to Waszawa", if you know what I mean... ;-)
> Or is it already there and I just didn't notice?
No, it's not there yet. (What I meant was just that if you set all texts to "[NONE]" in the config files, and do all texts as graphics in the background image, you're of course free to do whatever i18n you want... ;-) )
> In any case, I'll happily do the Polish translation. ;-)
Yeah, I know, and I will probably come back to you for this one day. :-)
But currently there's not only the problem that the font is not even full 7-bit ASCII, but would support ISO-Latin-1 theoretically -- but even this would not be sufficient for a Polish translation (ISO-Latin-2). There's no polish "L" in my font, for example... :-o
Like I thought... I guess there are lots of more important things on that list, e.g. Supaplex compatible engine and reconsidering what levelsets to include by default (vide another thread where I complained lots about it ;-), so with the current amount of text it's not really needed... but some descriptive pictures for menu options could be in place.Holger wrote:Well... There are plans for i18n in R'n'D as in "it's on my TODO list, which reaches from Berlin to Waszawa", if you know what I mean... ;-)
-
Kugurrah
Getting better...
Very well, I'll start checking the examples.
Thank you for the advices, hope that I'll do a good work, and maybe I'll upload something...
-----------------------------------
Anyway, by the way, have fun!
Thank you for the advices, hope that I'll do a good work, and maybe I'll upload something...
-----------------------------------
Anyway, by the way, have fun!
Re: Getting better...
If you need some uploading space, you can use http://www.zomis.net/rnd/upload.php - but of course you can put it on your own server if you want and have that possibility.Kugurrah wrote:...and maybe I'll upload something...
Holger: I guess you already know who can do the swedish translation
And actually, I didn't know that it was possible to change / remove menu items on the main menu... maybe I should start playing some of the newest level sets.. (I guess I should start by looking into R&D Puzznic and those... I've also thought about the possibility to make a Puzznic kind of game
)-
Kugurrah
Stuck
I looked for the menu options coord data, but didn't find any.
I have found the pcx file containing the main screen in the snake_bite_jue folder, and so the translation problem is solved.
The point about changing the position and the behaviour of the single options still remains a mistery, I've only found the settings regarding the *source* position of the single images, and not their *destination* position, nor I've found their behaviour settings.
Due to Zomis' words ("I didn't know that it was possible to change / remove menu items on the main menu...") I think that maybe the solution is not so close...
I have found the pcx file containing the main screen in the snake_bite_jue folder, and so the translation problem is solved.
The point about changing the position and the behaviour of the single options still remains a mistery, I've only found the settings regarding the *source* position of the single images, and not their *destination* position, nor I've found their behaviour settings.
Due to Zomis' words ("I didn't know that it was possible to change / remove menu items on the main menu...") I think that maybe the solution is not so close...
Welcome to the forum then! :-)
> The point about changing the position and the behaviour of the single
> options still remains a mistery
Although it would probably be useful too, you cannot directly set the position of the menu options one by one. What you can do is the following: Change the graphics for the fonts used on each screen, and change their relative position. To just get rid of text drawn with a certain font, just set it to "[NONE]" instead of a valid PCX filename, like this (for the main menu):
font.menu_1.MAIN: [NONE]
font.title_1.MAIN: [NONE]
font.title_2.MAIN: [NONE]
Change relative text draw offsets like this:
menu.draw_xoffset.MAIN: 5
menu.draw_yoffset.MAIN: 20
font.text_3.MAIN: fontm.pcx
font.text_3.MAIN.x: 0
font.text_3.MAIN.y: 350
font.text_3.MAIN.width: 7
font.text_3.MAIN.height: 12
font.text_3.MAIN.draw_xoffset: 186
font.text_3.MAIN.draw_yoffset: 28
(These examples were taken from the "graphicsinfo.conf" of Juergen Bonhagen's set "R&D West".)
Hope that helps! :-)
> The point about changing the position and the behaviour of the single
> options still remains a mistery
Although it would probably be useful too, you cannot directly set the position of the menu options one by one. What you can do is the following: Change the graphics for the fonts used on each screen, and change their relative position. To just get rid of text drawn with a certain font, just set it to "[NONE]" instead of a valid PCX filename, like this (for the main menu):
font.menu_1.MAIN: [NONE]
font.title_1.MAIN: [NONE]
font.title_2.MAIN: [NONE]
Change relative text draw offsets like this:
menu.draw_xoffset.MAIN: 5
menu.draw_yoffset.MAIN: 20
font.text_3.MAIN: fontm.pcx
font.text_3.MAIN.x: 0
font.text_3.MAIN.y: 350
font.text_3.MAIN.width: 7
font.text_3.MAIN.height: 12
font.text_3.MAIN.draw_xoffset: 186
font.text_3.MAIN.draw_yoffset: 28
(These examples were taken from the "graphicsinfo.conf" of Juergen Bonhagen's set "R&D West".)
Hope that helps! :-)