As you know, I am finishing up on my Lord of the Rings Pluging for lackey, and would be really interested in maybe making a board game conversion as I love board games. I have been looking though your BSG Board Game proof of concept plugin.
Here are some initial thoughts.
1) Decks on The Table
I was just thinking, that for board games. Is it possible to make decks sit upon the table? I know you have added "shared zones" witch is like a deck that sits on the table, and not owned by anyone. I just think it would be very cool if you could place a deck upon the table itself. Maybe double click on it to draw from it or something.
2) Chitz
Many board games use Chitz. These differ from the counters that you have in lackeyccg at the moment as they need to be moved around and placed on different thing at different time. For they can define a number of things besides count, like for example location. I would like a type of Token for chitz. So you can in fact have your physical chitz you have in the game space.
3) The game board
The game board needs to be stiff. What I mean is that at the moment the way the app scales and squashes everything dosn't really work for the board. You need exact positioning, that is global to all players. This also includes cards that have things placed on it. Many games use cards as a way to build a board. Like dungeon games for example, you build the board from a deck as you play.
hang on my wife is calling me to the door we have surprise visitors.. brb.. latter
Quote from: Jynks on November 26, 2011, 02:16:52 AM
As you know, I am finishing up on my Lord of the Rings Pluging for lackey, and would be really interested in maybe making a board game conversion as I love board games. I have been looking though your BSG Board Game proof of concept plugin.
Here are some initial thoughts.
1) Decks on The Table
I was just thinking, that for board games. Is it possible to make decks sit upon the table? I know you have added "shared zones" witch is like a deck that sits on the table, and not owned by anyone. I just think it would be very cool if you could place a deck upon the table itself. Maybe double click on it to draw from it or something.
2) Chitz
Many board games use Chitz. These differ from the counters that you have in lackeyccg at the moment as they need to be moved around and placed on different thing at different time. For they can define a number of things besides count, like for example location. I would like a type of Token for chitz. So you can in fact have your physical chitz you have in the game space.
3) The game board
The game board needs to be stiff. What I mean is that at the moment the way the app scales and squashes everything dosn't really work for the board. You need exact positioning, that is global to all players. This also includes cards that have things placed on it. Many games use cards as a way to build a board. Like dungeon games for example, you build the board from a deck as you play.
hang on my wife is calling me to the door we have surprise visitors.. brb.. latter
Decks on the table is more of a mental construct. If you want to think of shared zones being on the table or not, that's more of a mental abstract. Functionally, shared zones work the same as a pile on the table. Providing a visual pile of cards on the table, I don't think actually is an improvement.
I don't know exactly what you mean by chits. You can use token cards as well as counters, and some people do.
To get the functionality you are talking about, where each player sees a card of the same place, requires the functionality in place now. The play mat is stretched to form a uniform normalized square quadrant system that all players see the same. If you compare how all players see the table, it should be the same. Send some screenshots if you think things aren't working as intended.
here are 3 screen caps taken at the same time by 3 different people in 3 different parts of the world fro ma test game of the LoTR plugin.
(http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043312/220/7043312.jpg) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043312/img/7043312.jpg) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043322/220/7043322.png) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043322/img/7043322.png) (http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043310/220/7043310.jpg) (http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043310/img/7043310.jpg)
Quote from: Jynks on November 26, 2011, 07:01:35 AM
here are 3 screen caps taken at the same time by 3 different people in 3 different parts of the world fro ma test game of the LoTR plugin.
(http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043312/220/7043312.jpg) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043312/img/7043312.jpg) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043322/220/7043322.png) (http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043322/img/7043322.png) (http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043310/220/7043310.jpg) (http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/7043310/img/7043310.jpg)
What specifically is the problem? Are you checking off the preference "Rotate table image 180 degrees?"
The problem is that the board looks different for each player. The location of the cards on the table are in different places. Many board games require precise positioning. Like I own 3 dungeon crawling games that have a player board that is drawn from a deck, making the dungeon as you explore it. This needs to be a set size, the cards can not change size at all. Wargames like 40K require minute measurements, no scaling. Many games use chitz on cards that move to other area, these need to be places exactly. In the images here each player has a completely different looking board. that means that the vast majority of games can noit be played in it.
Quote from: Jynks on November 28, 2011, 12:48:34 AM
The problem is that the board looks different for each player. The location of the cards on the table are in different places. Many board games require precise positioning. Like I own 3 dungeon crawling games that have a player board that is drawn from a deck, making the dungeon as you explore it. This needs to be a set size, the cards can not change size at all. Wargames like 40K require minute measurements, no scaling. Many games use chitz on cards that move to other area, these need to be places exactly. In the images here each player has a completely different looking board. that means that the vast majority of games can noit be played in it.
The reason those 3 images look differently is because of appearance preferences.
You can choose to have the table mat like a real table mat, where if you are sitting on the opposite side of the table, you see it upside-down. Or you can choose to see it always up for you.
The individual player chooses. Or the plugin maker can choose to have all players sit on the same side of the table.
You can choose to have the table mat zoom in with the cards, or you can have the table mat zoom and card zoom unrelated.
With the proper preferences, I think all players would see the table the exact same way, which is what you want.
so you would rather have suron who is in mordor be in the the white city due to the stretching of the board?
It occurred to me that what you need for board games is the ability to duplicate a piece when you grab it from your hand. (Which should be called the "box" or something other than "hand" in the plugin, but that's academic and preferential for the plugin designer.)
In other words, in your hand zone, it shows a single image of a particular type of piece, like the legion piece in Risk. And whenever you grab it, you get a copy of that image. This is better than having 20 pieces in your hand zone that look exactly the same. So if the game has 5 pieces, they're all right there in a row.
You could even let the plugin designer choose how many copies the piece produces while in hand and tell it to add them back to that number if put back into hand rather than keeping duplicates in hand.
You could either let the plugin designer put it in there, or make it an option in the Appearance tab: "Turn off duplicates in hand."
It's a matter of convenience, but it makes a whole lot of sense for a board game.
a better way to do it is have a peace card for say a solder and then you grab from the token area thus you have an unlimited supply
Quote from: Ascent on December 03, 2011, 04:24:38 AM
It occurred to me that what you need for board games is the ability to duplicate a piece when you grab it from your hand. (Which should be called the "box" or something other than "hand" in the plugin, but that's academic and preferential for the plugin designer.)
In other words, in your hand zone, it shows a single image of a particular type of piece, like the legion piece in Risk. And whenever you grab it, you get a copy of that image. This is better than having 20 pieces in your hand zone that look exactly the same. So if the game has 5 pieces, they're all right there in a row.
You could even let the plugin designer choose how many copies the piece produces while in hand and tell it to add them back to that number if put back into hand rather than keeping duplicates in hand.
You could either let the plugin designer put it in there, or make it an option in the Appearance tab: "Turn off duplicates in hand."
It's a matter of convenience, but it makes a whole lot of sense for a board game.
Making a card a token in the token list works much like that.
Quote from: Trevor on December 02, 2011, 08:28:52 AM
Quote from: Jynks on November 28, 2011, 12:48:34 AM
The problem is that the board looks different for each player. The location of the cards on the table are in different places. Many board games require precise positioning. Like I own 3 dungeon crawling games that have a player board that is drawn from a deck, making the dungeon as you explore it. This needs to be a set size, the cards can not change size at all. Wargames like 40K require minute measurements, no scaling. Many games use chitz on cards that move to other area, these need to be places exactly. In the images here each player has a completely different looking board. that means that the vast majority of games can noit be played in it.
The reason those 3 images look differently is because of appearance preferences.
You can choose to have the table mat like a real table mat, where if you are sitting on the opposite side of the table, you see it upside-down. Or you can choose to see it always up for you.
The individual player chooses. Or the plugin maker can choose to have all players sit on the same side of the table.
You can choose to have the table mat zoom in with the cards, or you can have the table mat zoom and card zoom unrelated.
With the proper preferences, I think all players would see the table the exact same way, which is what you want.
Well you would need everyone to be using the same resolution screens, everyone would have to have the screen maximised and either have the start bar hidden or in the same position and width. The resizing bars that allows you to stretch the screen about would need to be in the same position, and the image scale function at the top would need to be teh same as well anbd grid spacing would have to be teh same
For a board game or a table top war game to work you need to have exact positioning. So all the stretch and squash needs to be completely removed. I can not see any other way around this.
The player mat being upside down or not is relevant, though your right for wargaming at least you would have to have it the same way up I think....
Maybe an option in the "card" definition to disable all scale and squash and stretch functions.
I think there is a misunderstanding going on. With the proper appearance preferences (where people are consistent on the playmat not rotating or not stretching), then things will appear consistent for every player.
To be specific, we are talking about placement of items on the table, both in respect to where cards/pieces are in relation to other cards/pieces, as well as where they are in relation to the playmat image. As I have things now, this is preserved, and I believe the way I am doing things now is the best way (perhaps the only way) to obtain those results.
If you have any questions, let me know and I can clear things up.
... well if you can show me how I would be interested, because as far as I can see if you even so much as move the side bars changing the width of the play area the images all get squashed and the position moves.
If someone is using a different resolution in windows, things are in a different position, if they are using the same resolution but one is not maximised and one is then it looks different. If they have the image scale set to 60 and you have it set to 100 it looks different.
I mean maybe I have it wrong but I seen no way to make the screen the same for both all players.
Quote from: Jynks on December 05, 2011, 08:07:28 AM
... well if you can show me how I would be interested, because as far as I can see if you even so much as move the side bars changing the width of the play area the images all get squashed and the position moves.
If someone is using a different resolution in windows, things are in a different position, if they are using the same resolution but one is not maximised and one is then it looks different. If they have the image scale set to 60 and you have it set to 100 it looks different.
I mean maybe I have it wrong but I seen no way to make the screen the same for both all players.
Things are normalized to a square. Your table is a "square" and their table is a "square", even if your square is squashed vertically, and their's is squashed horizontally. If you see a card at exactly the middle of your bottom left quadrant, (.5,-.5), then they will also see it at their corresponding location.
You follow me?
The same works with an ex you can draw on the table. If you put an ex over the playmat, they will see the ex in the same part of their playmat. If you don't, then your apparent preference should be changed.
but the chitz and the like are all visually different. Like on one screen they will be touching, in another they will be far away form each other. What setting do you need to set to make them appear exactly the same in each screen. I have tested a lot (on my desktop and my laptop) and have never once been able to get the board set-ups to look the same. I mean I am sure you are right, but I can not work it out.
Quote from: Jynks on December 05, 2011, 01:27:32 PM
but the chitz and the like are all visually different. Like on one screen they will be touching, in another they will be far away form each other. What setting do you need to set to make them appear exactly the same in each screen. I have tested a lot (on my desktop and my laptop) and have never once been able to get the board set-ups to look the same. I mean I am sure you are right, but I can not work it out.
Not sure what you mean by "chitz". Send me a picture to show me what you're talking about.
chitz are just like a "card" it is a object like say a wound marker... or w/e...
I'll make a few screenshots.. I am experimenting with translating Dungeons and Dragon's - Wrath of Ashardalon (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66356/dungeons-dragons-wrath-of-ashardalon-board-game)
Witch uses a deck to make the player board (as you explore the dungeon you reveal a new tile) Each card is divided into squares for placement, so the chitz (player icons in this case) need to sit in exact positions ontop of these revealed dungeon cards. It uses "markers" like for example a flame marker (similar to Decent) that you need to place hard against the base of the model casting the flame spell and it creates an area affect flame blast if you are in it you get wounded. So you need to be able to place cards freely, with out the grid getting in the way, the same goes for measuring sticks. It usesd other cards to create areas on the board, like say a acid spill, again using exact positioning and scale...
Anyway, I'll make some screenshots for you.
Hi Tragik
I would like to ask if you finished the plugin for the Wrath of Ashardalon? If yes will you please publish it? I love the game, and I would like to play it in the Lackey.
One question to Trevor:
I look for but I don't find: Is there function for the card like lock them? I mean that I place a card to the board and right click I lock it, so no way to move it, and if I want to move it an other right click to unlock it. If there is can you tell me how, if there is no, do you think a near update you can make it? In a board game it can be very useful not to move the dungeon tiles when we want to move something else.
Thank you
Quote from: valiante on April 01, 2012, 12:31:16 PM
Hi Tragik
I would like to ask if you finished the plugin for the Wrath of Ashardalon? If yes will you please publish it? I love the game, and I would like to play it in the Lackey.
One question to Trevor:
I look for but I don't find: Is there function for the card like lock them? I mean that I place a card to the board and right click I lock it, so no way to move it, and if I want to move it an other right click to unlock it. If there is can you tell me how, if there is no, do you think a near update you can make it? In a board game it can be very useful not to move the dungeon tiles when we want to move something else.
Thank you
There is a function now to lock a card to make it not turn when you do a turn all function, but that's not what you mean. WHat you are talking about would be useful and easy for me to implement, so I shall implement it soon.
If there are any other sorts of functions needed for board games, let me know.
Trevor, a small one that might be nice is "move [zone] to table"
What i would hope to happen is the whole zone is moved to one spot (stacked) on the table.
This would be very useful for a lot of reasons. And should be pretty code light. The stack of cards doesn't need to act any different than any other stack of cards, It would simply take the bottom card of the zone, put it down at the location, and then repeat that until the zone is empty.
Nothing special once on the table, just a stack of cards at the center of the table that I could move around from there. Would probably disable this while "cards can completely cover other cards" is off. The cards would need to complete cover each other less they might take up the whole dang screen.
Hi Trevo,
Thank you very much. :D
May be as you say it will be easy to implement it I would like to add somethin go this to make your work a little bit harder. ;) Can you make it plase that when you lock the card, it stays on the bottom layer always? I mean the locked card can never cover a card above it.
Other thing, if it is possible to turn off the snap grid. I try to change the snap grid smaller than the default (0.03) it doesn't change. I try with 0.2 or 0.1 but no result so I think without the snap it can be really easy.
Thanks a lot again
Quote from: innuendo on April 01, 2012, 02:28:28 PM
Trevor, a small one that might be nice is "move [zone] to table"
What i would hope to happen is the whole zone is moved to one spot (stacked) on the table.
This would be very useful for a lot of reasons. And should be pretty code light. The stack of cards doesn't need to act any different than any other stack of cards, It would simply take the bottom card of the zone, put it down at the location, and then repeat that until the zone is empty.
Nothing special once on the table, just a stack of cards at the center of the table that I could move around from there. Would probably disable this while "cards can completely cover other cards" is off. The cards would need to complete cover each other less they might take up the whole dang screen.
I think this is more a failure of imagination. In the real world, there are stacks of cards on the table, and random cards (not in piles) on the table. In Lackey, the random cards (not in piles) are those seen on the table area. The game zones are for the piles of cards. If you want to think of the game zones as piles of cards of the table, you can think of them that way. When it comes down to it, a pile of cards needs additional things (like the ability to shuffle it for example) and there is no practical use to make a pile of cards visually appear in the table area, other than to help people who can only conceptualize it that way.
A deck doesn't need to be on the table, and the only reason you really do that with a physical deck is because there is nothing besides the table.
Quote from: valiante on April 01, 2012, 02:45:13 PM
Hi Trevo,
Thank you very much. :D
May be as you say it will be easy to implement it I would like to add somethin go this to make your work a little bit harder. ;) Can you make it plase that when you lock the card, it stays on the bottom layer always? I mean the locked card can never cover a card above it.
Other thing, if it is possible to turn off the snap grid. I try to change the snap grid smaller than the default (0.03) it doesn't change. I try with 0.2 or 0.1 but no result so I think without the snap it can be really easy.
Thanks a lot again
I was thinking of making locked cards drawn underneath. How that will work is, once locked, those items can be selected as normal, but no functions will affect them (besides the unlock function) and they cannot be moved (except by global functions like clearing the table or starting a new game).
Regarding snap to grid, you can't turn it off, but you can do many different things to the grid, including making it small. A very small grid size is indistinguishable from no grid, and if you have trouble changing the grid size after reading the tutorial, ask me your questions.
Hi Trevor
The card locking will be great like you describe it. Thank you very much. :D
About the grid I check it again, but the same result.
As you say in the tutorial the default setting of the grid is .03. This is correct, because a plugininfo.txt with the line GRIDSIZE:".003" gives the same result like without this line. If I change the value of the GRIDSIZE higher, like GRIDSIZE:"1"the result is good, so this is correct also, but when I put the GRIDSIZE:".001" the result is the same like the GRIDSIZE:".003". So as I see the GRIDSIZE works well betrween 0.03 and higher numbers, but for me the lower numbers gives the same result like the GRIDSIZE:".003".
Can you please check if it work well, or how can I set the grid size smaller than 0.03?
Thanks a lot
Cheers
Quote from: valiante on April 01, 2012, 04:44:48 PM
Hi Trevor
The card locking will be great like you describe it. Thank you very much. :D
About the grid I check it again, but the same result.
As you say in the tutorial the default setting of the grid is .03. This is correct, because a plugininfo.txt with the line GRIDSIZE:".003" gives the same result like without this line. If I change the value of the GRIDSIZE higher, like GRIDSIZE:"1"the result is good, so this is correct also, but when I put the GRIDSIZE:".001" the result is the same like the GRIDSIZE:".003". So as I see the GRIDSIZE works well betrween 0.03 and higher numbers, but for me the lower numbers gives the same result like the GRIDSIZE:".003".
Can you please check if it work well, or how can I set the grid size smaller than 0.03?
Thanks a lot
Cheers
Currently, valid grid sizes are between .01 and 1. Enter anything else and it will use the default value, which is .03.
EDIT: I just checked and noticed that the minimum is actually slightly higher than .01, like .011 or so.
Try
<definition><kind>GRIDSIZE</kind><value>0.011</value></definition>
Hi Trevor
Thanks for the help, the 0.011 work well. Here is a picture how I can put the dungeon tiles next to eachthem.
(http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5313/boardrk.th.jpg) (http://img403.imageshack.us/i/boardrk.jpg/)
Tell me when the card locking will be on.
Thanks again
The goal of my suggestion was not to put a deck on the table. It was to put any zone on the table in one stack. This is useful in board games for loads of common actions. Especially in games where the top card of a group of decks is already revealed, as in a fair number of deck builder games.
Other things better accomplished with this method:
"place your hand under this card"
"Place all player decks in the middle of the table, each player then chooses one"
Frankly, I don't care how unimaginative you think it is. It's virtually no code to write, and I can think of a lot of uses for it in board games I play. Isn't that enough?
Quote from: innuendo on April 03, 2012, 10:51:55 AM
The goal of my suggestion was not to put a deck on the table. It was to put any zone on the table in one stack. This is useful in board games for loads of common actions. Especially in games where the top card of a group of decks is already revealed, as in a fair number of deck builder games.
In lackey, there are game zones, and then there is the table zone, which is a kind of game zone. Decks, discard piles, hands, and others are game zones, and those are handled with the functionality needed for them (such as space, browseability, and modularity). If you try to put those on the table with the other cards, it would necessarily be a poor incarnation, and I think it would confuse people, especially because there are other (in my opinion superior) methods for looking at zones, and I don't think you are suggesting to remove those other methods in favor of this new paradigm. Are you talking about a simple placeholder item for a zone on the table? If so, I don't see the point of using that over the current methods. Maybe I am not understanding what you mean. Perhaps post a mock up of what you want?
Quote
Frankly, I don't care how unimaginative you think it is. It's virtually no code to write, and I can think of a lot of uses for it in board games I play. Isn't that enough?
As far as I am aware, the physical placement of a deck is not used in any game, so it is strictly not necessary.
It is actually a lot of code to write to handle piles of cards together on the table. I'm not sure why you would assert otherwise.
People might think they should see decks on the table, and for that reason alone, it might be a good thing to add, but there are also bad things about having it even as an option. It complicates the interface, and I think it would do so a disproportionate amount to what it gives. It may be a good idea in theory, but I don't think it would work well in practice, or at least I haven't figure out a way it can be done well. I've given it a lot of thought and there are a lot of things against it that are not immediately obvious.
Quote"place your hand under this card"
"Place all player decks in the middle of the table, each player then chooses one"
Those effects are extremely rare (if they ever happen) and if they were to occur I think they would be better handled a different way than by a physical deck appearing on the table. As I said, this is all an abstraction. Consider the whole window as "the table" and the cards will be on the table.
You seem to miss what I want.
I don't want the deck zone to be on the table. I want to be able to take the cards from a zone, and stack them on the table. At that point they would no longer be a deck. They would be a stack of cards on the table.
I could do this currently by dragging single cards at a time from the zone to the table. The method in list form would be as follows:
- Take bottom card of the zone, move it to table at location (x,y)
- repeat 1 until zone is empty
This is why I say it would be code light. It's a menu option that calls a function you already have "move card to table" and repeats it until the zone is empty. Like I said, at that point it's no longer that zone, they are just cards on the table.
I agree with you that putting deck zones on the table is confusing. So I don't want the zones to appear on the table. But I want to be able to mass move a zone to the table in one location. Right now if drag and drop the cards they appear in one big long line, making it impractical to move a zone more than 5 or so cards large this way.
Quote from: innuendo on April 03, 2012, 08:44:32 PM
You seem to miss what I want.
I don't want the deck zone to be on the table. I want to be able to take the cards from a zone, and stack them on the table. At that point they would no longer be a deck. They would be a stack of cards on the table.
I could do this currently by dragging single cards at a time from the zone to the table. The method in list form would be as follows:
- Take bottom card of the zone, move it to table at location (x,y)
- repeat 1 until zone is empty
This is why I say it would be code light. It's a menu option that calls a function you already have "move card to table" and repeats it until the zone is empty. Like I said, at that point it's no longer that zone, they are just cards on the table.
I agree with you that putting deck zones on the table is confusing. So I don't want the zones to appear on the table. But I want to be able to mass move a zone to the table in one location. Right now if drag and drop the cards they appear in one big long line, making it impractical to move a zone more than 5 or so cards large this way.
If that is what you want, I don't think it would actually be that useful. Try it. Make a stack with that manual method. I think people expect to be able to treat such a stack as a pile of cards, which you can't really do without a control structure. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are trying to emulate a pile of cards, right? Are you talking about a use like the community chest deck is on the table of a monopoly board?
Monopoly is an example of the sort of thing I was talking about. While there is a specific area of the board that the community chest cards are put, that is actually a proper deck and should be treated as a game zone in lackey and not actually appear on the "table".
Try it manually, and let me know if it is actually useful. Even if it is, I think it would confuse people who expected such a thing to work like a proper deck.
It would be useful in something like a deck builder, as a I said.
For example, there are 4 draft piles. Each draft pile never gets shuffled or revealed, but always has it's top card revealed.
For all real purposes there is no reason for that to be treated like anything other than just a stack. Putting it on the mat allows me to easily see each of the 4 face up cards without having to cycle between deck panels.
Each time the top card is drawn you can just drag it into your hand, and then right click and "flip" the next card from that stack.
I'm well aware of other ways to do this, but it's about 4 transfer card functions and no good way to track what deck links to what draft pile. The most simple and easy solution would be to just let the cards exist on the table.
This is the sort of functionality I'm hoping to replicate. Right now there is no easy way to have "public stacks" that need to be viewed frequently. Or have a subset of them visible. Since you can't be looking at more than 2 zones at any one time, if you have your hand and your discard up (which I think is most practical) you have to constantly be swapping tabs to see the other zones.
I think if you are worried about confusion, naming the action correctly helps. If you say "move zone to table" it would be confusing. I think if you said "Move all cards to table" it would be pretty clear they are just being treated as cards.
Try it. I think it would be more confusing than anything else.
Hi Trevor,
I am in the end of the work on the Wrath of Ashardalon plugin. Can you please make the dungeon tile lock function? I will need it soon :D
Thank you