| Author |
Message |
maurizio de leo (Megamau)
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 6:29 pm: | |
Hi. This post is directed mainly to Karl Scherer.
I am trying to create a selection screen of all your submission, but this seems nearly impossible : you are pretty profilic and I hope things will stay this way.
Anyway, my request is pretty simple : would it bother you to create "summarizing" game like "all-setris" ?
What I'm thinking about is to link only the ipotetic All-Amaze,All-Knots,All-Cats and mouse, All-Clingon from which then the users choose their game.
This would be helpful also for the updates : often when you fix a bug or add a feature it interests all the games of a "series". A single download would be easier.
Anyway....thanks for your great work
Maurizio |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 5:51 pm: | |
Hi Maurizio,
thank you for your suggestions.
I indeed HAVE created quite a few bundles of games (Reptiles, Reptiles II).
For several reasons (see further below) I feel
that selection-menues often serve this grouping of games better.
I have now created several menues which allow you
to select PUZZLES BY TOPIC!
The puzzles-by-topis menu (and its many submenues)
can be run by itself, or selected from the
(very convenient) already published select-by-grp
new alternate top selection menu of Zillions.
(To be published next sunday on the Zillions site, or get it from my web pages htp://karl.kiwi.gen.nz)
........................
There are several reasons why menues are often preferable to bundling:
1. Similar games often do not actually use
all the same bitmaps and pieces, even when they look similar.
Bundling them together artificially
then would increase the bitmap directory and
hence increase the file size and hence slow down the download proicedure and hence make it less fun to get them in the first place
(you might have an expensive fast internet line,
but the majority doesn't).
A good example here is the game series Knots,
..., Knots 4, which have about 1MB each by themselves, and they do NOT use the same bitmaps.
So if someone wants only one of those games,
the download is faster than downloading a bundle.
Please also note that these games do not even share the same board!
2. What the bundling should include can be quite a matter of discussion.
For example, should Labrat be part of Cat and Mouse? With menues, you don't have that problem of
decision-making.
3. The argument in part 2 applies also and even more so to games from different authors.
E.g., it is easy to bundle "Bauhaus" with "Amaze"
in a menu (because they use the same Area-maze idea), but it is impossible to bundle both into one zip, because they are from different authors.
4. Games with silimar names and similar boards
do not neccessarily have the same game text.
E.G., the game texts for the Knots games are quite long (one hardly fits on my screen, even on 1000x1200, and you CANNOT scroll),
and indeed very different.
The zillions site (and also my web site), however, allows only ONE text page per publication.
This obviously would not make much sense for the Knots series, because the games cover wuite diverse topics, namely strings and knots
on one side and wire-and-string puzzles on the other side, which are very different problems
and need somewhat different descriptions, pieces,
rules, board, game text.
I think you get the drift.
Since you mentioned Cat-and-Mouse:
This argument also applies to Cat-and-Mouse, since
Cat&Mouse 4 has a very different board, and very different rules from Cat&Mouse 1, 2, 3.
Now judging from the name, I suppose you would suggest to bundle them, isn't it?
However, from the very different game strategy, Cat&Mouse 4 needs a game text page for prospective users to read, hence it needs its own
zip file.
Now wouldn't that look strange, if Cat&Mouse 1, 2, 3 are bundled in one zip and Cat&Mouse 4 is not ???
Now maybe you say that the name of Cat&Mouse4 should be exchanged to something else,
and I agree that the choice maybe was not the best, but then they all refer to cat-and-mouse play, don't they, so the naming makes sense.
You see, things are not always that clear cut in real life...
4. Changing things backwards is usually awkward for all concerned. (E.g., I have bundled my Setris games into All-Setris, but Zillions never deleted
the singular, historical and outdated Setris games).
For all these reasons I suggest that the
best solutions is :
- We authors keep bundling into one zip in mind, but use it as an option, not as a must.
When I write a new games, I do not PLAN a series, it just happens over weeks. I will keep in mind that bundling afterwards might be useful.
- Let us create menues and keep them updated to make bundling and selecting games easier.
You, like any user, are always most welcome to create your own menues of course and bundle and collect in them any groups of games you feel belong together.
If you think they are of general interest,
please be so kind and publish them.
As a starting point, have a look at my menues.
I have used a menu which is a little bit different from those proposed (they have back-buttons for example).
I hope these my slightly improved menu standards will be used by more and more users out there.
I hope I could clarify things a bit.
Cheers, Karl |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 6:03 pm: | |
P.S.
The Area-maze games (even when you only take the ones I created) are also a good example where
I feel that the bundling is not preferable for the reason that the rules and boards are extremely different in the various games,
even though the names are so similar.
When you look at the chess variants, they are much more similar (dozens use the same board and pieces), so we could bundle easily 50 of then into one zip. But it does not make much sense
for the same reasons, since the various game descriptions would be HIDDEN to the person who
wants to inform him/herself about the various games on the Zillions web page.
That brings me to a point I might not have made enough clear above:
I feel that a crucial criterium for bundling or not-bundling into one zip should be whether
one page of game text can actually describe
ALL the games in the bundle.
For my games which have been mentioned by you
I can only see that to be true for the CLINGON
games, and guess what - that is the bundle I had started a few months ago, but never finished
( I wanted to do some improvements at the same time...)
So if you are lucky, it might still see the day of light some time in the future.. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 6:05 pm: | |
By the way, I counted 46 of my zrfs that are bundled already. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 8:34 pm: | |
Hi Maurizio
I just had a fresh look at the SETRIS collection, called All_Setris.
Firstly, when someone hears about Setris
and wants to download it, he/she will not find it
in the alphabetical category "S", when it is bundled under All_Setris.
I will keep that in mind (and maybe other authors do, too), and name bundles in future more like
Setris-collection or similar to keep it at about the same place in the list.
Now when you look at the Zillions page for All_Setris, it shows the selection screen of All_Setris. This is - guess what - just a menu.
Hence the bitmap gives you no clues to what the board(s) of the various Setris games will look like. This is really a pity because the one page
available per published zip file is there to
give you an idea what the board looks like, what the rules are etc.
In such a case it would be preferable to have a very big page with short descriptions
of the various Setris games and also all board images displayed.
I am not sure, however, whether this is an accepteable way for the managers of the Zillions weg site to display such a page.
It surely is outside the standard suggested by the Zillions team.
You see, everything has advantages and disadvantages.
Thank you for making me think more thoroughly about these issues.
I still feel that a hierarchical menu system such as I have started it now for puzzles are the best way to handle the huge (and ever increasing) amount of games available at Zillions.
When you have thousands of games eventually,
I would say that it matters less and less
whether a special group of three or four are in one zip.
As always when one has to manage big amounts of anything, it is preferable to have special tool available to handle, portion and classify these things according to various aspects.
Menues are ideal for this
(and they are still lacking on the Zillions website).
There is also another, more technical disadvanatage of bundling which I have not mentioned yet:
When handling hundreds and thousands of items (like game files in this case), management
(like creating menues) is hard enough when one has standardised naming conventions.
To create the include-file Puzzles.txt
I had to key in the names of (nearly) all puzzle-zrfs that anybody has yet published.
To create references from the menu entry ot these games I am using several macros. The one that is easiest to use (name I just have to key in the game name) assumes that the game xxxx.zrf is stored in the directory xxxx.dir.
Of course this is NOT the case
(and cannot be the case) for bundled games.
This makes creating menu entries more awkward,
because whoever manages these menues (and they will grow each week and hence need permanent maintenance), has then to type in directory name as well as the game name AND has to be aware to use a different macro which accepts two name entries.
If you think this is all very simple to do, I kindly suggest that YOU take over the maintenance of the Zillions menu system, how about that?
I hope my elaborations up to now gave you a bit of an insight into the the material and showed that there is more to bundling than meets the eye at the start...
From my experience, I do not find it very convenient, neither for me nor for the users who try to get information form the Zillions website.
I wonder what other authors have to say on this subject. Any comments?
Happy puzzling, Karl |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 10:33 pm: | |
I am proud to say that I have recently, after 4 years of work, managed to nest all 45 of my chess variants neatly into one Zillions entry requiring
only one download file.
Every conscientious game inventor- regardless of their numbers or categories covered, regardless of the sub-classifications, game group descriptions and individual game descriptions desired- should work toward and achieve this goal of organization. Otherwise, we clutter the indices and unfairly camouflage from view the work of others. I can think of no reason for any person to do so which "cuts any ice". Realize that managing your entire work overall with efficiency, when the total game number becomes large, should be your most important priority.
Downloading numerous small files on a pick-&-choose basis actually requires more time than downloading one large file in one step. The game player can then pick-&-choose games from their hard drive, already having your entire collection of games in case they happen to like every one of them.
Observant "game shoppers" will recognize that it is probable an entry with 50, 100, 200, 300 games will contain many treasures esp. if the game inventor is well known and well spoken of (as you are). We have nothing to fear. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 6:58 pm: | |
Clustering only makes sense if the games use the same images, since you can have only one image file for the clustered games.
I agree this works especially well for chess.
The argument fails usually for other games. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 7:07 pm: | |
PS. I don't know why you mention fear.
I think the arguments I brought up above are very rational. In fact, you did not reply to any of them, so I see them still as valid, yes rather confirmed.
And please leave out implying what emotions I have and such nonsense.
Let us try to be objective and not emotional in discussions like that.
Personal attacks do not help the subject. |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 8:08 pm: | |
My off-handed usage of the word "fear" was not to be taken literally (or hysterically). I'm really not delving into anyone's emotions or attempting psychoanalysis. It is just a casual American figure of speech. It means essentially "we can do it if we try". The tone of my message was NOT a personal attack nor is one forthcoming because I think you are great.
Clustering all of your *.zrf's (with required graphics) into one download file remains possible, notwithstanding. To argue otherwise would be preposterous. If instead it is more accurate to characterize your position that you are concerned the total size of your composite file would be deterrently large for download, please just admit so flatly and be done with it. |
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