Mantra

by DivineTraveller
Create your own spells, and embark on a quest to save or destroy the lands!
ID:107324
 
Keywords: mantra
In the last few days, I've done a reasonable amount of work converting several of the 'ugly' features of my tech demo into something more 'pretty.'

Let's start with spell creation:



I originally wanted people to create their own spells, with a classic S/NES-styled entry, but then I realized that most people would not be keeping notes on learned prefixes/suffixes/roots. Then, it was suggested to me (by two people, before I accepted it), the solution seen above. Obviously, the coloration is temporary, but hopefully the layout provides a somewhat-decent idea of how it works. Oh, there might appear to be a lot of blank space below the "confirm" button, however, it's used for errors. :D

You might note that there's only one prefix. There's also only one root, and one suffix in those other two tabs. This is because I felt the need to only have one for testing, but those tabs will be much more full for the average player!

Moving on.. the "mantrabook" (which I just refer to as spellbook, because I haven't thought of a clever name yet):



Every book (well, most) has a table of contents. I decided I wanted to fill mine with random stats about the book itself (this is a book that has magical capacity, so why not?). Truthfully, I compress all of the spell pages into one page (to use space more effectively), so the "characters per page" and stuff doesn't really apply to anything but the spell pages.. I should probably make that distinction, otherwise it looks self-contradicting.

Also, I give myself a lot of extra room, because I like random stats, and will probably introduce more, later.

And last, the Mantra section of the book:



They expand downwards, then across, much like a book is read. I decided, since a lot of spell information might not be known to the writer, that said writer should be able to put in his/her own description for each spell. I also provide the ability to remove spells at any time (I originally wanted to require a "holy eraser" or something, but eh..), but keep in mind -- spells can only be written at a holy podium, so removing them whilst adventuring is probably not a good idea.

Again, a note for all pictures: coloration is terrible, and will be messed with later.
The word structure would temp me to put the three spell creation tabs into a single pane with three columns. The buttons and labels could then be above them.

B & L
P|R|S

*shrug* =)
I was originally thinking to split it into three columns, but I wasn't completely sure how I could do it (and manage a small window space). My rationale for doing it this way, was having potentially long descriptions (mine was short, but again, testing).

However, I think I'll revisit it sometime later and implement it that way. I think that seeing them all at once helps a lot more than sifting through tabs to find one.

Thanks for the suggestion!