initial thoughts:
something i see, time and again, is what i'll call
unfriendly window usage. while i understand the app-up games were designed for netbooks, you still want a wide # of users to enjoy all the (obvious) hard work you've put into something like this.
with that, i would appreciate a small routine that considers the large amount of users, like myself, who won't be playing this on a netbook and now struggle to look past a rigid design element.
including something like this would go a long way:
rem desired resolution
ww = 1024 : wh = 600
`ww = 1024 : wh = 768
if check display mode (ww,wh,32) = 1
rem if it will fit full-screen...
set display mode ww,wh,32
set window layout 0,0,0
mode = 1
else
dw = desktop width() : dh = desktop height()
if dw >= ww and dh >= wh `if window will fit in desktop...
rem center the window!
winXoff = (dw-ww)/2 : winYoff = (dh-wh)/2
set display mode ww,wh,32
set window size ww, wh
set window position winXoff , winYoff
set window layout 0,0,0
mode = 2
else
print "display mode unavailable"
wait key
end
endif
endif
do
cls
center text ww/2,wh/2,"Mode: "+str$(mode)
center text ww/2, (wh/2)+12, "FPS: "+str$(screen fps())
loop
** of course, you could/should take it a little further than the code offered above, but you get the idea. regardless of how much you expand on the code, it's still a relatively short amount of work that would go a
long way, in my opinion.
otherwise, the window's "crammed" into the upper-left corner of the screen. by removing the title-bar, i can't move it to a more-appropriate location and am now forced to 1) move my taskbar since it overlaps the game (yes, some of us still keep our taskbar at the top of the screen where it's supposed to be
) and 2) decide if we can look past this irksome situation we're now forced to endure and still enjoy the game (over-dramatic verbiage, i know
). i don't have a problem with titlebars and borders being removed but please consider as much of your audience as you can when designing
meanwhile:
as stated before - the media is awesome and impressive.
play is "good", though i see some
slightly jittery movement throughout (which doesn't detract much). collision could use a tweak in some respects, especially when the ball expands where things aren't happening 100% as expected.
i think there could be a little more cohesion between the menus. ie, having the mouse work (well) on the options menu but disappear on the main menu (requiring keyboard input) is a little cumbersome.
the entry system re: High Scores could use some tweaking (namely, holding [shift] hides characters until it's released). further, certain characters are omitted from the ONLINE High Score table (mine should read "VN!" or "NOMAD!" (i can't remember which one i used)). i'm sure you know of these issues but they're worth mentioning. by the way, being who you are, i'm sure you'll appreciate
part of the backstory to my handle here.
i'm gonna take some time and learn the power-ups & -downs and continue exploring your creation here but did want to offer some initial thoughts.
nice work and thanks for sharing!
Virtual Nomad @ California, USA . DBPro V7.5
AMD Phenom™ X4 9750 Quad-Core @ 2.4 GHz . 8 GB PC2-6400 RAM
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