UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Damyen on September 15, 2016, 09:37:11 pm
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Hello. After playing with the 2.6 version of the game, I really wanted to thank you for the many improvements of the game and its revamped graphical interface: the battlescape looks really great, and is more elegant and more practical; and the geoscape interface and base management are greatly improved once you get used to it. I also appreciate some gameplay changes, like the the higher stunning effect of smoke grenades, and the differents prices of items in the market (buying > selling).
Of course, there are still minor glitches, imho. Just a few examples for your information:
1) Interface
a) The earth image (bottom of the screen) is nice, but prevents a correct reading of UFOpedia descriptions: too bright, really; better remove this background image when you have to read something (or remove transparency).
b) The new interface seem to use a kind of layer that adds some "dark grain" or some "dark pitch" over the GUI (it's difficult to describe it). It is a nice touch to menus, buttons, borders, etc., but I don't like it when it covers the base buildings and the background image used when starting a mission.
2)Gameplay
a) I miss the menu tips (will they comme back? or will they be integrated somewhere else, like during loading times?).
b) In battlescape, I slightly miss the reservation to crouch soldiers.
3) Police and typography
a) I am not fond of the use of UPPER CAPS, even in menu; moreover some text areas are too short, and text doesn't display well. Example: (on my screen), the title "UFO:ALIEN INVASION", over the start menu, is not displayed well -> the last N is slightly truncated (and I prefer the typo : "UFO:Alien Invasion").
b) Moreover, when you change the langage of the game, diacritics are very reduced, and some specific typo disappears. Example : in french, the letters "é è à ù ç â ê î ô û" (and their uppercase counterparts...) often ressemble letters with a simple dot over it. And the the « an » signs are not displayed. Many other languages use diacritics because this is meaningful for them, and I fear that they could have the same problem.
Notes:
* I don't criticize the change of the police; shifting from the old police to a more readeable one is a good idea, really;
* maybe this problem occurs only because the size of the police is a bit too high.
c) Many text areas are really too short; I often corrected my recently submitted translation by using synonyms or shortening sentences, but it is sometimes impossible. For example, the connexion dialog use the word "password", translated into « Mot de passe » (no other solution). But the french version only displays « Mot de pas... »; or the "Coronas" translated into "Couronnes" is truncated).
I can post more detailled descriptions of theses small issues in the bug tracker if you want. As I assume you noticed many of these points by yourselves, and I know that the v2.6 is work in progress that just need time. just tell me which one retain your attention. Thank you.
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Thanks for your feedback, glad you are enjoying the game so far
Now for the problems you mention:
- Interface
- Bad UFOpaedia readability is a known issue (#5321 (http://ufoai.org/bugs/ufoalieninvasion/issues/5321))
- The fuzzy overlay over the UI... well some people love it, some people hate it, maybe we could omit it from certain parts of the UI as a compromise...
- Gameplay
- You mean the tip of the day? If so yes they probably should come back in some way (They are still in the scripts, just don't appear anywhere at the moment.)
- TU reservation is yet another thing that only needs a place in the UI to be usable (suggestions as to where it could show are welcome)
- Typography
- All upper case text: I don't like it very much myself, but I guess is a question of taste (or maybe a cultural thing, I don't know)
- Yes diacritics are a problem, that's the reason I used a different font for the Spanish translation ("Ñ" looked exactly like "N" which is not good, as you can guess)
There has been talk about changing the default font (mainly because it doesn't support characters outside of the standard latin set) but no decision was made so far, in the mean time, you can also "translate" the font to one that suits your needs (from the ones that are included with the game of course) - Too short text areas in the UI are a problem even for the original English text in some places, feel free to compile a list of places where it happens somewhere so it isn't forgotten.
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I really enjoyed v2.5 before, and I really enjoy v2.6 now :).
1- Interface :
- Oh, didn't see this one.
- Yes, perhaps a compromise could do. It is always difficult to deal with tastes; mine would be = no fuzzy overlay over base buildings and over the image when starting a mission. But I will play even if this overlay is every- or nowhere:)
2- Gameplay
- Yes, that's what I meant.
- Perhaps the "Reservations" buttons (fire and crouch) and the position (crouch and stand) could be displayed as 2 buttons graphically paired together? Or perhaps something similar to the button to change what you have in your hands (which was a very clever soIution)?
3- Typography
- Truth is that I removed uppercase in the translation I tested and submitted.
- Sounds like a good compromise. How do you change that police?
- Ok, I'll try to compile places where texts areas are too short (with thematic research to ease corrections). But perhaps the new police is too wide, and using a narrower one or reducing its size could simply solve the problem (and the problem of diacritics).
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To change the font for a translation just "translate" it: search for the fonts (see fonts.ufo for the default fonts) in the *.po file and translate the entry, for example "translating" 'media/orbitron-bold.ttf' to 'media/JuraDemiBold.ttf' will change the typography for the bold text in game, you'll probably want to change all/most other entries for consistency too, and as you've probably guessed already, the fonts available with the game are in the base/media directory (or the corresponding *.pk3 when using the installer)
This has been used by the "far east" translations for some time now, due to their special needs of characters.
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Well, it works greatly! I translated "orbitron-medium" and "orbitron-light" into "DejaVuSans", and the result is really good: letters and signs are displayed as they should be. Moreover, even some places where the text was truncated are not truncated anymore (like «mot de passe », now fully displayed). I am perhaps too enthousiastic, but I even think that readibility was improved (not very objective there... let's have one night waiting period :) ).
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That's good to hear, always glad to help :)