[Kde-games-devel] KMines SVG

[Mark A. Taff]

On Friday 09 February 2007 04:48:32 Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
> I like it, Mark. It is nice that you have re-used the existing flag in
> the Oxygen theme, for example.

Thanks.  I think it looks sharp.  Deriving from existing oxygen icons saved a 
bunch of work as well, all I had to do in some case was re-implement the 
icons so that it is easier to change the colors at runtime.  For example, 
replacing a colored linear gradient shape with two identical shapes, one with 
a solid base color fill, the other with a grey to transparent fill gradient.

> 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.

I see what you mean.  I will work up two different options so we can visualize 
the potential for each.  The first is the use of opacity and gradients on the 
tiles to more clearly show the difference between cleared and uncleared 
space.

The second would be to use discinct colors for uncleared vs cleared, ala 
vista.

I am also considering a thin (1px) black border to help illustrate the grid 
even more.

In an earlier mail you said we should use the default font for the numbers.  
Until we get a svg graphical version of i18n(), I agree that we *must* do 
that so those who use non-arabic numbers can play the game with their native 
symbols.

Perhaps this could be added to the svg library?  This seems possible to me.

Regards,

Mark