Sunday, August 3, 2014

Fiddling with the ADOM Deluxe menu screens

Right now I am toying with the new design and interaction workflow for the ADOM Deluxe menu screens - in ASCII mode. Once the dust settles and I am happy with the design (and Team ADOM agrees ;-) ) Krys & Co. will turn the ASCII design into a beautiful graphical layout.

Here we go with the revised Deluxe start screen:


You will note that - instead of just being able to press SPACE - there now are three options:
  1. Play the Game (which is like pressing SPACE before - you just get to the next screen; SPACE still works, too, so that nobody has to change old habits)
  2. Settings (which will allow to configure overall settings like sound and music volume, full screen at start or not, etc.)
  3. Credits (which provides a deserved hall of fame for Team ADOM)
The next screen also has been greatly revised. Here's my current take:


As we are talking about the commercial Deluxe version, several things have disappeared, among them:
  • the postcard quest data
  • the FAQ
  • the request for donations
The newly gained room is being taken up by focussing on several game modes:
  1. Tutorial (for learning the game; it's been there for a while and is going to be expanded to make it even easier to get into the game)
  2. Restore an old game. (You know about that. Nothing new here.)
  3. Repeat last game. (This basically will be the standard [complex] character generation but ADOM will memorize all your past choices except for the name and repeat all those choices; thus if you always want to play a female character with randomly rolled stats, random class and of dwarves origin it will be but one click to do so.)
  4. Generate a new character. (The standard character generation procedure with more choices in Deluxe)
  5. Challenge of the week. (One special instance of the Infinite Dungeon with special rules that differ for each week. One attempt and hopefully one highscore per week - we still are checking the Steam capabilities here ;-) )
  6. Cooperative mode. (Separate highscore. The blame will be easier the more of your Steam friends play ADOM at the same time. And the more friends you have in total the easier it will be)
  7. Exploration mode. (Gain a free blessed wand of wishing. No highscore entry in this mode.)
Additionally during character generation you will be able to fine-tune the actual game play by selecting game variants:
  • hunger on/off
  • corruption on/off
  • save & restore allowed (RPG mode)
  • maybe more...
Deviating from any of the defaults will lock achievements, result in a separate highscore list and turning hunger/corruption off will greatly reduce your final score in the separate RPG highscore.

The goal of these designs naturally is to
  • keep the roguelike spirit alive (by making the defaults and the central highscore focussed on being roguelike).
  • offering options to players who more enjoy the RPG aspect instead of the roguelike aspect.
So much for my current thoughts and designs...

10 comments:

  1. Cooperative mode? That sounds promising... What it will be? I thought it could be standard game but every x ( lets say 200 turns) turns another player takes control over character. More players = less turns to wait + better highscore? At least thats just my guess.

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  2. Looks nice. I'm intrigued by cooperative mode as well. Hopefully it's some sort of pass-and-play mechanic like flashdoom suggested, and not Twitch Plays Pokemon!

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  3. Hopefully we're still going to be able to use point-buy and starsign selection in char generation...

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  4. This sounds very very cool. And I like the layout. It's a good idea to put the settings and credits on the first screen, rather than crowding out the main menu even more.

    The hunger/corruption/save-restore options .. aren't they more game-settings, rather than character creation options? {shrugs} Just a thought.

    Actually, hunger and corruption could be sliders rather than on/off .. you could set them lower if you want the game a bit easer without totally removing the mechanic, or make them higher than normal to make another kind of challenge game.

    I'll stop rambling now. :)

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    1. I'm still fighting with the names for settings / options / ... :-D

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  5. Please retain these shortcuts:
    G - Generate character
    R - Restore game
    are most important.

    You could allow RPG Save/Load to be definable as shortcuts in adom.kbd.

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    1. Both retained, see the second screenshot magnified ;-)

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  6. This just got a lot more epic. :D

    11/10 Would Buy.

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  7. I think the first screen should be much cleaner, only the title, some cool ASCII art and the options. Anyone could find the links to the other stuff if needed, maybe just show a short main link.

    The other ideas look great, coop could be a lot of fun. Can't wait to play again!

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