Subject: Re: Symbols other than ASCII
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 15:01:27 GMT
From: "d.brodale" <lar+usenet@bway.net>
Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing
Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.development

"Björn Bergström" wrote:

: [When] sticking to the old traditional ascii
: characters [...] The problems begin when you
: run out of characters...

At which point one should address the issue of
color as a secondary indicator for meaning. To
take and example from Dungeon Crawl, types of
orcs [already well-mapped as a group using the
'o' -> 'orc' verbal association] are defined
by colors.

However, both orc priests and orc warriors are
represented by yellow o's -- not at all ideal,
given that orc priests are spellcasters and orc
warriors are not, and a player's reaction to
seeing a yellow 'o' on-screen tends to depend
on that functional distinction.

In this case, synonymous display characteristics
mask a fundamental and significant (in terms of
player response and monster threat) game-play
element.

Other problems with using color subkeys to augment
a limited character vocabulary also exist:

  * players may lack access to color displays --
    not much can be done here other than to
    avoid use of colors for anything but secondary
    information;

  * players may suffer from color-blindness --
    here I would reference issues that cropped
    up with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri as a
    gross example of impact, and it can only
    be solved in limiting the scope of meaning
    for at-risk colors;

  * displays may be miscalibrated -- generally
    not an issue unless overly similar colors
    are meant to express far-from-similar ideas;

  * selected colors may be too close on a spectrum
    to convey meaningful distinctions -- limited
    palettes of disparate colors can solve this;

  * vocabulary confusion can result from using the
    same color to express multiple, dissimilar
    concepts -- impact dependent on how clear the
    contexts are understood to be by players;

  * etc.

[ As an aside, it would be an interesting to
  implement an in-game mechanic where a particular
  race or character has to overcome the limitations
  of monochromatic or colorblind vision when
  identifying potions, mushrooms, monsters that
  only differ in color, etc. ]

Sorry to run off on a tangent, but there are a lot
of interesting issues raised in selecting a decent
represention of a game world on-screen.

------

Another idea to throw out for consideration:

Has anyone implemented coloration of objects or
monsters on the basis of threat level or any
similar scalar value?

For example, a game that tracks monster-player
relations along a friend<->foe scale and provides
an option to visually map intentions of displayed
monsters using a single- or multi-hued spectrum?

Are there any analogous instances in which a
similar approach might be a useful feature to
implement? Possibly keying monster coloration
on threat level (defined however: ranged threat,
damage threat, magic threat) rather than subtype
[as is usually standard] as a view-toggle?

- don