[Kde-games-devel] KMines SVG

[Mauricio Piacentini]

Mark A. Taff wrote:
> I have uploaded a screenie of a work in progress oxygen theme for KMines, just 
> to keep you guys abreast of where I'm at.  Everything in the screenie is in 
> svg, save for the ocean background.
> 
> http://www.marktaff.com/tmp/kmines.oxygen.svg.20070208.png   370KiB

I like it, Mark. It is nice that you have re-used the existing flag in 
the Oxygen theme, for example.

> I realize the code is nowhere close to using this yet (or maybe ever), but you 
> get an idea of what KMines could be like.  The tiles I use have transparent 
> middles to facilitate various backgrounds.  I also did a quick outline of a 
> landmine in addition to the usual sea mine.

The only restriction I have with this general approach of having
backgrounds is the lack of clear visualization of board state, something
that affects classic KMines as well to a certain degree, but for a 
different reason. To understand what I am talking about, see

http://www.tabuleiro.com/mauricio/kmines_study.png

One characteristic of this type of game is that time is important. That 
is the reason for the different colors in the numbers, so players can 
quickly recognize patterns and solve the board as quickly as possible. 
But more important than this imo is the ability to quickly recognize the 
areas of the board that have been cleared, and the ones left to explore.

If you look at the screenshot above, you will see that even the classic 
Windows version is a bit better than KMines KDE3 in this particular 
aspect, as it is easier to identify which portions of the board have 
been explored. The Vista version is also good (in this aspect.) If you 
look at KMines SVN, a simple darkening of the depressed cell graphic 
(already in SVN) makes reading the board state much easier. I am not 
sure what is happening with Gnome Mines, but at least the version I have 
does not fare very well on this aspect. The SVG graphics are very nice, 
but look at the screen capture: there is no difference between the cells 
that have been clicked and cleared, and the ones that were not yet 
explored. This makes the game very difficult to play, at least for me. 
Maybe it was done like this on purpose, as I agree it requires more 
attention from the player. But I personally prefer to visualize the 
board state more clearly, and this is even more important with larger 
board sizes.

But I am not against having a background in KMines, I believe it would 
be nice to have one designed to fill the outside of the playing field 
area, like it is done in the Vista version. Or maybe a very dim one that 
just shows partially in the cleared cells. It all depends on the 
implementation, really.

Regards,
Mauricio