ID:103179
 
Keywords: development
Acebloke's Exploder is one of my favorite games. However, I've been nagging him to update the interface for quite a while. I recently decided to do it myself and Acebloke gave me permission.

Here are the files along with a demo to help Acebloke implement the dynamic settings.

Old and Busted



New Hotness




I didn't like playing inside of a postage stamp. I increased the map size. Then I went a bit further and increased the skin dimensions to 1024x768.

I've always found the old HUD confusing. It's a mass of red and blue dots that always seems to remind me of the bridge of the USS Enterprise. I cut most of it out and created big friendly buttons with text for the rest.

Likewise, I hate empty menus, I often find status bars useless, and verb panels go against BYOND Strategy's feature standards. I removed them.

I also rewrote the help file and edited its layout. The old version had a bunch of extra colors that left the reader's eyes without a place to focus. It also described options that the interface itself should make obvious. Overall, the new version is a shorter read that should be less intimidating.



Continuing the HUD removal, the map settings have been moved to their own tab with big, friendly, descriptive buttons.



Switching rooms is now handled where the rooms and people are displayed. If you didn't guess from the earlier screenshots, the buttons next to the thumbs replace the old HUD method of voting for who players think will win. There's a separate pane for each number of players allowed. Rooms with 3 to 4 players should also be able to vote now.

Meanwhile, I created graphics for the higher resolution. There's only one theme, but I made all of the shapes different in an effort to help the colorblind.
Wow, just wow. I've downloaded it and taken a look. Even though this was designed for Exploder, I'd recommend that anyone who is as inept as me at interfaces to take a look.

I'll aim to try and get this included asap, because it really does look gorgeous. Then I'll demand that everyone plays it. :p

Thanks ACWraith, I'm sure this took quite awhile to do, but it'll definitely be worth it once its in the game.