Some thought's I've been having:
Originally, I was thinking of something inspired by Metro or another interface style. But lately, that idea is less and less appealing to me. For one thing, whatever design we pick will be out-of-place on every platform except for the one it's designed on. Also, what looks modern and cool today will look dated in a couple of years. Basically, I'd like us to do our own thing.
I've been kind of contemplating a dialogue-based design. (More than just contemplating - the RAPT tool has an early version of a dialogue-based interface, just to try it out.) To think about this, realize that there are three basic modes of operation of the launcher.
1) Open-ended choices. This is the mode where the user is being offered the opportunity to decide what he wants to do next. I figure there are several variations of this screen:
- The user is presented with the ability to select a project to work on, create a new project, or configure launcher settings.
- The user is asked if he wants to edit the game, launch the game, apply a tool to the game, or package the game.
- The user is asked what label he wants to start editing from.
etc.
2) Closed choices. This might be a prompt asking if you want the game to run in landscape or portrait mode.
3) Progress. This is when the launcher is telling you about what it's doing, as it's doing it. For example, packaging progress or status reports.
So what is a dialogue-based launcher? I'm thinking of a next-generation launcher where Eileen acts as an assistant/collaborator that works with you on creating your project. If this sounds a little inspired by Analogue, that's because it was.
Of course, there's a balancing act here. We don't want this to turn into Clippy, where you have to go through a ton of screens in order to get what you want to do done. But I'm thinking of having screens like this one:
Eileen wrote: Welcome back to Ren'Py 6.14.1. What would you like to do?
User wrote:
I'd like to work on...
... Moonlight Walks.
... Let's Hentai Hentai.
... Katawa Shoujo 2: Katawa Planet.
I'd like to create a new game.
I'd like to change launcher settings.
I'd like to exit the launcher.
While the actual dialogue would vary, the idea would be to to present up to two dialogue windows at once - one for Eileen to report what's going on, and one where the player can choose what he wants to do, or to answer her questions. Since both windows will be on the screen at once, there won't be any extra clicking compared to today's Ren'Py Launcher.
A big problem is that I've been unable to figure out a way to implement this that feels attractive to me. There are several graphical design issues that I'm
having trouble with:
- What should the background looks like? Should it be something simple and abstract, or something more artistic?
- Do we need frames behind the dialogue? If so, what should the look like. I think they should be relatively simple, so we don't waste space with complicated borders - but apart from that, I don't know what they should look like.
Basically, I have really abstract ideas, and I don't have the skills to express them graphically. Hopefully, some of the artists and designers here will be able to give me a little bit of help in making this - right now, I think this is at the brainstorming phase more than anything.
Thanks.