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[ThKaspar]

As the process of tiles creation is still on-going and our community is alive an constantly growing we'd like to know your opinion about Cogmind's Tiles Mode.

Everything from the reasons you use It (or not) to pointing single sprites with positive or negative feeling will be very much appreciated.

[nsg21]

At my screen size I can only have 10-sized font. I started with tiles, but it is very hard to distinguish items when they are that small, so I had to revert to ascii and now I am invested in it too much and unlikely to go back to tiles as primary display mode.

I think tiles look great, aesthetically speaking, and I hit f4 every time I find a new item/robot to check what it looks like. And sometimes randomly, to enjoy the view. And to tell rough walls from smooth walls (they are harder to tell apart in ascii).

Since I look at tiles only sporadically, I wish F4 worked at all times, specifically when DATA window is open, but this has nothing to do with tiles proper.

[ThKaspar]

At my screen size I can only have 10-sized font. I started with tiles, but it is very hard to distinguish items when they are that small, so I had to revert to ascii and now I am invested in it too much and unlikely to go back to tiles as primary display mode..

I totally understand, thanks for sharing that.
May I ask you what screen resolution do you have on your screen?

[nsg21]

1366x768

I ended up running in windowed mode. It does not quite fit, so I have to move window so its caption area is above top screen edge

[ThKaspar]

That's pretty weird, I play with 1280x768 and by default I have tiles and font of size 12.

[jimmijamjams]

I like the look of the tiles and I'll flick over to them to check out new enemies/items, but I'm far more used to the ASCII (I personally find the tiles difficult to parse).  I don't believe this has anything to do with the art itself and more to do with the difference in colouring.  I know that the varied colouring is useful in giving a visual queue as to an item's rating, but it would be interesting to know if the tiles would be easier to parse if they retained the ASCII colouring.

For reference I'm playing on a 1920x1080 monitor.

[Arseface]

I like the look of the tiles and I'll flick over to them to check out new enemies/items, but I'm far more used to the ASCII (I personally find the tiles difficult to parse).  I don't believe this has anything to do with the art itself and more to do with the difference in colouring.  I know that the varied colouring is useful in giving a visual queue as to an item's rating, but it would be interesting to know if the tiles would be easier to parse if they retained the ASCII colouring.

For reference I'm playing on a 1920x1080 monitor.

I did a shoddy mock-up. See for yourself.

http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=131.msg952#msg952

[nsg21]

That's pretty weird, I play with 1280x768 and by default I have tiles and font of size 12.

I rechecked and you are right, I have 4 options:
12/Crisp (what I use)
12/Cogmind (looks nice, but I cannot read it)
10/CAPS
10/Cased

Right now all of them are available, but I can swear that at some point I saw 12/* (or maybe it was 10/*) grayed out.
I will keep an eye on it and make a screenshot if it actually happens.

[Kyzrati]

Right now all of them are available, but I can swear that at some point I saw 12/* (or maybe it was 10/*) grayed out.
I will keep an eye on it and make a screenshot if it actually happens.

The default for 768p would be size 12, and if you saw something grayed out at one point, it was because you were in sprite mode, which isn't supported by size 10 fonts (too tiny), so sprite mode grays out those smallest fonts.

[CormacMccarthy91]

So I just noticed something that may be a reason to use tiles. When you see objects, and then walk around a corner so they are out of your line of sight, in ASCII mode the objects are all green, and the same symbol. However if you switch to tiles mode, you can see the different shapes and tell what parts are there.

edit: run on sentences.

[Kyzrati]

That's true that the shapes help point the types out more quickly, a second advantage considering you also get rating data from color of those item sprites within FOV.

However, regardless of mode you can just press '3' and see all the items with their labels to know exactly what they are (which arguably is more important than just knowing their subtype).

[Arseface]

in ASCII mode they are all green

Legs are the only green propulsion system. Wheels are yellow, treads are red, hover units are purple, and flight units are blue.

[Kyzrati]

I believe he's referring only to this situation:

...then walk around a corner so they are out of your line of sight...

[Arseface]

I believe he's referring only to this situation:

...then walk around a corner so they are out of your line of sight...

Ah, I missed that. Probably because I wouldn't call out of sight things green and run on sentences are hard to read.

It's a valid point then. Should examining be enabled for floor items out of sight or should this just be a tiles perk?

[Kyzrati]

It's a valid point then. Should examining be enabled for floor items out of sight or should this just be a tiles perk?

I think it's fine since the most detailed information you can get, the specific name of an item, is equally available in both tiles and ASCII mode. I play with ASCII and see no drawback to the system. Some may consider it an advantage of tiles, but honestly the items outside FOV don't usually stand out too well (due to the darkened colors across the board) and you need labels for faster more accurate searching anyway.

[Kasaris]

I personally use ASCII-mode only. For no reasons, I can't distinguish fast enough shapes in tiles because what stand the most at first sight for me is colors, then symbols. I don't know why but I struggle (relatively speaking, it takes like 2 seconds more) to tell the difference between two items/enemies of the same color than in ASCII-mode...

[Kyzrati]

In any case, in Alpha 1b you can now open up cogmind.cfg and set the game to use type colors for sprites. I still think the full color scheme works better for ASCII, but now there's at least an option either way.

[ukulele]

At my screen size I can only have 10-sized font. I started with tiles, but it is very hard to distinguish items when they are that small, so I had to revert to ascii and now I am invested in it too much and unlikely to go back to tiles as primary display mode.

I think tiles look great, aesthetically speaking, and I hit f4 every time I find a new item/robot to check what it looks like. And sometimes randomly, to enjoy the view. And to tell rough walls from smooth walls (they are harder to tell apart in ascii).

Since I look at tiles only sporadically, I wish F4 worked at all times, specifically when DATA window is open, but this has nothing to do with tiles proper.

Ah that was what I wanted to be sure of, I wonder if the FAQ needs to make that explicit that you can alternate between acii <-> tile-set views at will via "F4"? I know it shows that in the trailer, but it made me wonder if that was to "show-off" both views as opposed to "demonstrate real-time switching option"!

That's cool. I think it will help being switchable so I can enjoy the tile-set then if I want more info sometimes flick on the ascii or indeed just flick between them for fun. 

[Kyzrati]

I need to limit the number of things I make explicit, since we're already bordering on information overload both in the game and on the website, but I could add that to the ASCII-sprite section.

Also, the in-game tutorial does have a message suggesting you try the F3 key. (The key is actually F3, by the way. I just didn't correct nsg21.)

[ukulele]

I need to limit the number of things I make explicit, since we're already bordering on information overload both in the game and on the website, but I could add that to the ASCII-sprite section.

Also, the in-game tutorial does have a message suggesting you try the F3 key. (The key is actually F3, by the way. I just didn't correct nsg21.)

Of course I should realize you have already considered that and the economy of explanation required.  F3 it is. The flexibility of switching it will be interesting to see which view I start tending towards over time.

[Reiver]

I've been using tiles pretty much exclusively, and love them to bits. The readability is impressive - I know if I'm facing a guardbot simply because it looks like one, at least in the first few levels.

I also really enjoy how when you enter a level, you start off ASCII and then the flip to tiles once the loading animation is over. I'd feel like I was missing out on the duality if I went pure ASCII!

[Kyzrati]

I also really enjoy how when you enter a level, you start off ASCII and then the flip to tiles once the loading animation is over.

That swap was the very last feature added to the game just a couple days before Alpha 1, and I love it but doing that without proper testing also let slip a black screen bug for anyone in that version who used the size 10 font. Oops. (The workaround was easy, just press F3, but naturally it could confuse new players on tiny laptops.)

I used it as a way to let even new tiles players (who might not know otherwise) see that there's an ASCII view. (And frequently remind you of what's behind all Kacper's pretty sprites )

[Ghost73]

First off, the tileset for this game is excellent and fits really well with the game. Good job!

The only minor complaint I have with it is that it can be hard to differentiate between undiscovered tiles and floor tiles that are adjacent (such as when using a terrain scanner). It's usually not an issue, but I find myself switching to ASCII mode just to double check sometimes.

[Kyzrati]

Hi Ghost73!

There was a bit of a dilemma with tiles mode on this issue. We could've kept the discovered tiles brighter and more obvious like they are in ASCII mode if tileset mode also used dots (which was the original intention), but the final decision was to go with full-on squares instead. The problem there is that even discovered squares must be really dark or they interfere with the foreground too much due to their greater pixel area (even slight increases in brightness change the feel of the map quite a lot, and can make other parts harder to read).

However, Kacper did follow the tileset color gradient quite strictly, where in this case it might not be necessary and there could be some room to tweak the brightness of those up a little without harming the overall aesthetic and readability of other elements.

Another part of the problem is that on some monitors the floor tiles will show up better due to how very dark colors are treated, while on others they'll remain fairly dark. In finding the right brightness these two situations need to be balanced somewhat (with regard to the default appearance).

That said, there could be some sort of gamma correction specifically for this issue... In fact, that sounds like a pretty good idea! The current default setting would be the darkest, and you could shift the floors to appear brighter if need be. I'll explore this possibility, though testing shows that if the floor is too bright, debris doesn't show up very nicely.

See some attached samples of the current base value compared to +50% and +100% brightness on the floor.

[zxc]

Some background info: I generally play roguelikes with tiles. The main game I've played until now is DCSS, and 99% of the time I've spent in it has been with tiles. Other games such as Dwarf Fortress and Infra Arcana I've mostly played with tiles. However, I'm not opposed to ascii in general. Brogue I've played only in ascii, as well as other roguelikes with only ascii available such as Unstoppable.

When playing Cogmind for the first time, I had it on tiles. It looked visually attractive, but I had a lot of trouble telling the difference between items and recognising features. How small the tiles were (my current res is 1920x1080) compounded the issue for me. Maybe I didn't give it a long enough go, but I switched to ascii and immediately felt better (the F3 hotkey is great), and I've kept it that way since.