[pyddr-devel] Suggestions!

[The Doctor What]

* theGREENzebra (tgz at orotech.net) [030512 16:56]:
> >Suggestion 1: Different colors or styles for the second player.
> >Maybe, per-player themes?  Or maybe a vertical divider.
> 
> Per-player themes could be a good idea, but a vertical divider would be 
> easier to implement. Of course, most DDR players will just tell you that 
> you shouldn't look at the other players' arrows....

I probably should have prefaced the list with the fact that me and
my wife aren't hardcore players, but are rather people who just like
to play.  In fact, Basic 4 and 5 are pretty much out of our league.
:-)

So, I see what you mean, but a divider or player-profile themes
would be cool.  Maybe you could tint one side a different color.
(alpha).  Or maybe an alpha gradiant to the center to act as an
unobstrusive divider.

> >Suggestion 2: A Ready Screen.  Maybe using the "Ready?" "Go!" of DDR,
> >or just have a screen that waits for both players to hit "start" to
> >confirm in (with select canceling their ready).
> 
> Originally this was planned, but I think a reason we don't have a 
> "double-confirm" is to encourage the players to talk to eachother. We're 
> geeks, but we can be social. The common etiquette at arcades is to agree on 
> who will choose what songs (alternating who picks the songs is common) and 
> then the person picking the songs will say "is this song okay?" to the 
> other... etc.
> 
> Having said that, Pump It Up has double-confirm, and I'm not against the 
> idea, but I think it should be optional.

I see what you mean.  Of course, it all can be worked around.  But
only one player can hit start (and my wife kept reaching across and
smaking the start button on my pad :-).  I would suggest that if one
player has pressed a button in a while that a confirm in should be
required.  Otherwise just a "Ready?" pause 1 sec "Go!" start song.
should be fine.

> >3) Sometimes while using the keyboard, I would hit escape expecting
> >it to return to the song selection screen (which is, if you think
> >about, the main screen for the game).
> 
> Do you mean from the main menu? This is kind of confusing, but I can 
> understand frustration that might arise from quitting the game and having 
> to have it start up again. The CVS version starts up a lot faster, thanks 
> to Joe.
>
> >Suggestion: Make Quitting an explicit button on the option screen.
> >Perhaps pressing left then select would select a quit button on the
> >lower left of the screen.
> 
> So far, the game should be completely controllable using a mat. The arrows 
> are your arrowkeys, the start button is enter, and holding left and tapping 
> start is your escape. Last but not least, holding right and hitting start 
> should totally terminate the game. This was done not only so keyboardless 
> machines could play pyDDR (or so I can unplug my keyboard at cons), but 
> because I think most would agree it's good to have a game completely 
> controllable by its controller.

I think the game should be 90% controllable from the pads too.  (The
10% not included would be things like an advanced preference editor
for rankings or something, which while retrofitting pad controls
would be fine, it wouldn't be good to hinder the usability of
something like that by the controller).

BTW: Pressing right and start quitting is annoying too.  At the very
least put up a "Really Quit?" Y/N dialog or something.

And you know, I think I would start the game right at the song
selection screen, at least until different play modes are added.
The "main menu" right now is nothing more than an options screen.

[4 was deleted, I have no more comments]

> ---------feature ideas---------
> 
> >1) Song Ratings and a Weighted Randomize feature.
> >Suggestion:  Allow rating from the end song screen by both players.
> >Store as a running average.  Allow editing of the ratings from the
> >play list screen, but only via keyboard (since the interface would
> >be more complicated than the pads could allow).
> 
> This is a neat idea, there's something like this in DDR called "player's 
> best" that basically shows the songs that the players have done well on, 
> and some arcade machines also have a "most commonly played" list as well. I 
> know this isn't quite what you mean with weighted songplays, but it might 
> be feasible sometime in the future.

Actually, both look cool.  I'll tell you what, I'll draw some mock
ups, and scan them to you with a text description of screen by
screen.  What do you think?  I will assume that player profiles
exists so that per player ratings and "game machine" profiles can be
kept.

:-)

> >2) Review Song Mode.
> >It would be helpful to be able to fast forward and rewind through a
> >song (and it's steps) to help plan a strategy for tough parts of a
> >song.
> 
> This would probably be best suited for the song editor, once we have one. I 
> have some pretty good ideas for it. Though, part of the 'fun' of playing 
> DDR (IMHO at least) is playing a song and then saying "WHAT?" when you see 
> a weird part come up. Some people might disagree with me on this one, I 
> realise.. =]

Sounds good enough.  Especially if the editor can be gotten to via
the game.

> >3) Play the whole song on the song choice page.
> >Play the 45 second offset clip, but if left on that song, then just
> >play the whole thing.  No needed to have silence. :-)
> 
> I'm not so sure about this one, I mean, you've got XMMS, can't you just 
> listen to the ogg or mp3? I love music as much as (if not more than) the 
> next guy, that's one of the reasons I love DDR so much, but I think this is 
> designed to be "just a sample" so that people will be encouraged to pick a 
> song, and also be encouraged to pass it.

Well, it's a party game, and silence stops the party!  BTW: I think
some more animation and stuff should go on, just to keep the screens
interesting.  I have no problem with it becoming a randomize (or
rating based) DJ when left unattended. :-)  Or hey, a Karoki
machine!

> >4) Friendly Competitive Mode
> >Don't show the 'boo-bar' (the bar that shows how well you're doing),
> >but show instead a 'tug-of-war' type bar across the whole top of the
> >screen.  This would allow people to compete against each other
> >without having someone fail/autofail.
> >If autofail is turned on, then have if one person wins decisively
> >it'll end the game.
> >Maybe have a best of <n> mode, with this, too.
> 
> I really like this idea. That would be fun. Implementing it could be.. 
> interesting.... but let's bounce ideas back and forth in the channel or on 
> the list about it.

Cool!  I like the party game aspects. :-)

[other ideas snipped]

> I like a lot of these, and though I might sound a bit criticizing of the 
> others, they're not bad ideas. A lot of them will require the game to be a 
> bit more cleaned up and mature to be implemented, but that could happen 
> quicker than we think.
> 
> You guys keep playing, and we'll keep talking!

Absolutely!

Ciao!

-- 
Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter _what_ the
circumstances.
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The Doctor What: Da Man                          http://docwhat.gerf.org/
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