In-game UI overlay

[akien-mga]

The overlay should show at least the number of lives that each player has, maybe also the enabled skills, number of bombs, flame lengths, etc.

[ObaniGemini]

Do you need to add policies to the game ?
For example :

• a policy for numbers of lives
• a policy for menu buttons
• ...

[akien-mga]

By policies, do you mean fonts? :)

If so, yes we might want to use a fancier font for the UI elements than the current Fira one. However I would look only for existing fonts of good quality, a custom-made font needs a huge work to be really readable and actually look good IMO. I'm pretty demanding regarding fonts and typography :)

[ghost]

Have added a placeholder UI scene as one of the proposed changes in #20

Any ideas on how you would like the UI to look? Here are a couple of examples I've found online:

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

[ObaniGemini]

Why not on both letf and right sides ? ^^
Player 1 = left
Player 2 = right
Player 3 = left
Player 4 = right

It would maybe innovate a bit and let more room for additionnal infos (bomb level?fire level?items?)

[ghost]

That sounds good @ObaniGemini. So P1 is top-left, P2 top-right, P3 bottom-left, and P4 bottom-right?

Then you could have four groups of UI nodes (one for each player) and hide those groups that aren't in use.

@akien-mga, thoughts?

[akien-mga]

Initially I was thinking more something like the 3 examples you gave from old SNES Bomberman, but actually @ObaniGemini's idea sounds interesting too. There are some downsides though, as the four corner UI nodes will either cover part of the arena, or force us to add a substantial UI border all around the around the arena.

That's probably not a big issue on desktop, but might become problematic if we were to actually make an android version (btw the android version would most likely only make sense when online multiplayer is implemented, I don't imagine 4 players tapping on the same phone :p).

Another upside of the classic layout is that we can easily add/remove players and adjust the padding to make it look good. On the other hand, I like @ObaniGemini's suggestion that having more place for each player allows us to display more info, especially if we were to introduce some "RPG-like" elements later on.

So I have no precise idea yet, I guess the top UI bar would work fine, and the corner UI nodes sound cool but I can't tell beforehand it will actually be practical :)

[akien-mga]

additionnal infos (bomb level?fire level?items?)

That's something I had in mind too, maybe by displaying a small icon for each thing, and a number next to it.

[ObaniGemini]

@akien-mga : Ok, I totaly understand that, and now that you tell it I think that's why all the bomberman games put their overlay on top of the screen ^^
Also, for the four players typing on the same screen, ever heard about Bad lands ? :p http://badlandgame.com/ (originaly it's an android game)