Re: Publicity Test Run

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald@phy.cmich.edu>]

Lincoln Peters wrote:

> Perhaps a better system for categorizing games, both by genre and
> development stage, would go a long way here.  Something like this
> updated version of my proposed GTK+-based "Welcome" screen (which could
> be mimicked to the same effect with TclTk or ParaGUI):
> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/lmpeters/welcome2.png

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.

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

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.

   Just my two cents,
     Eric

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.