Recently passel, on this post, from this thread, said this:
\r\n..and it got me to thinking (and I didn\'t want to hijack that thread for this little aside...)
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\r\nOf course he is right that this is a forum for coders and re-coding/re-factoring a game behind the scenes is a valid learning experience for forum members, but having been a watcher (if not always a participant) of this forum since it\'s inception I would like to take the time to bring up the subject of a types of threads rarely seen.
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\r\nFor instance, how many threads have you seen where someone comes out and says:
\r\nI suspect such a thread would get responses like:
\r\n"Here\'s what coding changes you can make to increase the game\'s performance and make it faster.."
\r\nor
\r\n"Here\'s what you can do to re-arrange the user interface elements/controls to make the interface, as a whole, fit into a smaller space.."
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\r\nBut really not the same as:
\r\n"Here\'s what you can do to make the game more immersive..
\r\nor
\r\n"Here\'s what you can do to make the game less task-oriented and more fun-oriented.."
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\r\nDoes anyone get what I\'m talking about -' + '-basically asking higher order interface improvement questions..
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\r\nEven is this tech discussion forum -' + '-which in its description says,
\r\n..such threads about advanced design decisions/questions are rarely seen.
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\r\nThe other higher order type questions that don\'t get ask are questions like:
\r\nOf course I know there are a high percentage of "student/hobbyist" type coders on the forum so maybe that\'s why such advanced questions never get asked, but there\'s more than a few forum members that must have dealt with designing more advanced 3rd, 4th or 5th generation interfaces.
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\r\nIt just seems there are a lot of VB6 games with source code -' + '-but none go beyond a certain level..where it seems like over 90% of the code author\'s time was spent on the coding and less than 10% of the time/effort went into the interface.
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\r\nOr to put it another way - do we really need dozens of VB6 Tetris clones -' + '- all of the same mediocre code/interface quality,
\r\nor would be better to have a small handful of clones where there was a progression of both code and interface quality in subsequent iterations?
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\r\nOf course I know that people who are attracted to coding are not always those that are into graphics design (eg. Photoshop experts).
\r\nI understand that. It\' a left brain versus right brain thing.
\r\nBut even with that said why does it have to be so lopsided?
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\r\nMost of the younger forum members probably don\'t remember there used to be a sub-forum where requests for help specifically with graphics.
\r\nI guess it died (and was eventually eliminated), because there ratio of people asking far exceeded those willing/able to give help (as well as the fact that over time, as people who posted there saw how many posts went unanswered just stop using it..)
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\r\nI don\'t know..maybe its because design is so subjective..so painfully personal..that people are always afraid to ask these type of questions.
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\r\nYet I want to get across the message: Even small interface changes can make a game much more enjoyable than massive rewriting the backend code.
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\r\nThis is really something that I feel should come up (needs to be discussed) more, but I hate to "push" such an agenda in the context of a coders forum like this one.
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\r\nMoving my VB6 code to web-based apps, though, has me thinking a lot about 2nd and 3rd generation interface adaptations, but I guess that\'s just me..