Re: Publicity Test Run

[Lincoln Peters <sampln@sbcglobal.net>]

On Sat, 2004-11-13 at 15:55, Eric McDonald wrote:
> Yes. I had some very, very similar thoughts a couple of weeks ago. I had 
> intended to quietly introduce such a system when I was creating the 
> SDL/ParaGUI setup screens.
> 
> For the most part I agree with your storyboard. I would suggest that 
> "SciFi/Fantasy" be broken up into two separate genres: "Fantasy" and 
> "SciFi", and that another genre, "Miscellaneous", be added. The Insects 
> game would likely fall into that category.

Good points.

> 
> Also, I think that with the "Development" checkboxes, the "Show 
> unfinished games" checkbox is no longer necessary. 

Agreed; after posting it I realized that the checkbox was still there
and had become redundant.

> Indeed, finding a way 
> to get rid of that checkbox or something similar is what led me to think 
> of the classification system which you have also arrived at. I am not 
> very comfortable with the word "unfinished" in the context of Xconq, 
> since it does not necessarily mean incomplete development.

For now, we could change it to something like "beta" or
"in-development".

> 
> The historical genres might benefit from being renamed to things like 
> "Stone and Bronze Age Warfare", "Iron Age Warfare", "Gunpowder Age 
> Warfare", "Industrial Age Warfare", and "Modern Age Warfare". Another 
> genre might be needed to cover Advances or Civ2 like games where a 
> progression through multiple ages is possible.

That makes more sense.

> P.S. The way I had previously been considering prior to this 
> classification system was to break the Xconq library up into a number of 
> sublibraries, and then setup navigation to the different games 
> libraries. However, this creates a problem for games that may belong to 
> more than one genre.

I can see how games that fall into multiple genres may not fit easily
into a sub-library architecture.  I could imagine that, in the system I
describe (with the changes you suggest), a game like Advances would pop
up whenever the Genre checkboxes "Stone and Bronze Age warfare" or "Iron
Age warfare" are selected.  Civ2, on the other hand, would show up if
any genre other than "SciFi", "Fantasy", or "Miscellaneous" is selected,
as long as under Development, the "Beta" checkbox is selected.

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln@sbcglobal.net>

Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they
are another's.
		 -- Susanna Martin, executed for witchcraft, 1681