259 replies to this topic

[karri]

I have been a bit obscessed by playing Freecell and Klondike on my PC. I even tried to get them for the PSP but the cards were too small.

Exceed had a very nice sized card game in MegaPak (Black Jack). The cards are easily readable on the Lynx screen.



Has someone coded a good user interface for Freecell or Solitaire to the Lynx already?

Personally I prefer the way these games were done on the Gnome desktop. The game is semi-automated and cards go to the pack automatically when it is obvious.

Here is a Freecell screenshot scaled to Lynx resolution.


Not really readable anymore.

Here is Solitare scaled to Lynx resolution.


Not much better.

Or perhaps the Lynx should use scrolling and better resolution?


Ideas?

--
Karri

Edited by karri, Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:48 PM.

[jaguar_fan]

The last screenshot obviously looks best, however scrolling is needed to "see" the whole card table. I don´t know how practical this will be...

How about a "magnifying glass" option which autmatically magnifies to the point around the cursor?

Just my 2 cents....

[karri]

jaguar_fan, on Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:22 AM, said:

The last screenshot obviously looks best, however scrolling is needed to "see" the whole card table. I don´t know how practical this will be...

How about a "magnifying glass" option which autmatically magnifies to the point around the cursor?

Just my 2 cents....

Good idea!

So how about this magnified view?


--
Karri

[Songbird]

I think the magnifying glass approach would work. Very similar to Shanghai on the Lynx.

[krupkaj]

hehe. I am a bit obscessed by playing Klondike on my iPod classic at these days. It has smaller screen than Lynx and it is playable and fun. I know iPod has modern color lcd with high resolution. But I think the scaled down version of Solitaire with optional zoom could work!

[jaguar_fan]

karri, on Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:39 AM, said:

jaguar_fan, on Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:22 AM, said:

The last screenshot obviously looks best, however scrolling is needed to "see" the whole card table. I don´t know how practical this will be...

How about a "magnifying glass" option which autmatically magnifies to the point around the cursor?

Just my 2 cents....

Good idea!

So how about this magnified view?


--
Karri

Wow, that looks quite good!

[Atari Smeghead]

Say, if you're taking suggestions for card games on the Lynx, how about Spider Solitare? I've really gotten into it on my PC and I'd love a portable version.

Cheers,
Smeg

[MrAtari2600]

i would prefer the second one or a ZOOM feature allowing the choice of last 2.

[karri]

Atari Smeghead, on Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:00 AM, said:

Say, if you're taking suggestions for card games on the Lynx, how about Spider Solitare? I've really gotten into it on my PC and I'd love a portable version.

Cheers,
Smeg

It makes sense to make Solitare, Freecell and perhaps Spider at the same time. The card deck eats up cart memory and sharing it with several applications makes sense.

I have not tried Spider myself. Perhaps I should do it.

--
Karri

[Atari Smeghead]

karri, on Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:16 PM, said:

It makes sense to make Solitare, Freecell and perhaps Spider at the same time. The card deck eats up cart memory and sharing it with several applications makes sense.

I have not tried Spider myself. Perhaps I should do it.

--
Karri

It is a fun game, fairly simple to understand, only takes a few minutes per game. On Easy mode, with only one suit, it's pretty easy... I win around 80% of the time (It keeps track of total number of wins/losses, total number of wins/losses in a row, percentage, etc). Medium, with two suits, becomes quite difficult. I've only won a few times. I have yet to win on Hard... all four suits.

Oh, and to answer your question, though I don't think it's all that necessary, the magnifying glass would be the better option. Even small, it's pretty easy to figure out which card is which.

Cheers,
Smeg

[MrAtari2600]

Atari Smeghead, on Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:30 PM, said:

karri, on Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:16 PM, said:

It makes sense to make Solitare, Freecell and perhaps Spider at the same time. The card deck eats up cart memory and sharing it with several applications makes sense.

I have not tried Spider myself. Perhaps I should do it.

--
Karri

It is a fun game, fairly simple to understand, only takes a few minutes per game. On Easy mode, with only one suit, it's pretty easy... I win around 80% of the time (It keeps track of total number of wins/losses, total number of wins/losses in a row, percentage, etc). Medium, with two suits, becomes quite difficult. I've only won a few times. I have yet to win on Hard... all four suits.

Oh, and to answer your question, though I don't think it's all that necessary, the magnifying glass would be the better option. Even small, it's pretty easy to figure out which card is which.

Cheers,
Smeg

every windows PC has spider solitare & freecell
so lol.
give it a shot!

thats if you got a games folder ( unless its a WORK computer lol)

Edited by VintageGameCollectorKid, Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:50 PM.

[SwedenLynxer]

Those screen shots looks very nice, Karri!

I also think optional zoom would be the best way to go.

[doctorclu]

jaguar_fan, on Fri Feb 15, 2008 4:11 AM, said:

So how about this magnified view?
magnified.png

This one looks best.

[Lynxman]

doctorclu, on Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:25 AM, said:

This one looks best.

ACK

[karri]

Are there any lynxers out there who would like a solitare game so much that they are willing to do a little work for it?

I just grabbed some card images and scaled them down to Lynx resolutions. The result is a little messy. I would appreciate if somebody could improve this graphics sheet.

The resolution is 510 by 196 pixels and the first index 0 (Dark green) will be transparent. You can change all other colors in the palette to anything. But the Lynx can only use 16 colors and the index 0 is not available.



The idea is to publish Klondike as a free download. Other games may follow later.
--
Karri

[EmOneGarand]

karri, on Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:07 AM, said:

Are there any lynxers out there who would like a solitare game so much that they are willing to do a little work for it?

I just grabbed some card images and scaled them down to Lynx resolutions. The result is a little messy. I would appreciate if somebody could improve this graphics sheet.

The resolution is 510 by 196 pixels and the first index 0 (Dark green) will be transparent. You can change all other colors in the palette to anything. But the Lynx can only use 16 colors and the index 0 is not available.

LynxCards.png

The idea is to publish Klondike as a free download. Other games may follow later.
--
Karri

I'd be impressed if you pulled off a game of Montana on the Lynx's tiny screen maybe tiling would be a good choice? You'd only need one stock card with the suit and number as seperate tiles.

[karri]

EmOneGarand, on Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:23 AM, said:

I'd be impressed if you pulled off a game of Montana on the Lynx's tiny screen maybe tiling would be a good choice? You'd only need one stock card with the suit and number as seperate tiles.

Montana is not the primary goal right now

I thought about building up the card from pieces but bitmaps are easier. If I get space problems then I may do tiling.

Besides bitmaps are cool for making themed card decks. If there is extra space on the cart I could make a selection screen for choosing the card deck.

--
Karri

[Fadest]

Just posted a message on french forums. Maybe someone that do not read AA could help you.

Btw, if you and your future graphic artist are OK, that would be nice to have these sprites as freeware. That could be helpful fort other developper

[karri]

Fadest, on Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:36 AM, said:

Just posted a message on french forums. Maybe someone that do not read AA could help you.

Btw, if you and your future graphic artist are OK, that would be nice to have these sprites as freeware. That could be helpful fort other developper

Thanks!

Freeware is ok with me. There is also a few routines that could be shared in all card games - a dealer, animated flip of card, card piles, dragging of cards and piles and of course the automatic magnification user interface. On top of these you can then create any kind of card game.

--
Karri

[semicolo]

I could start with cleaning the cards border, what do you say ?
I don't find the pictures so bad, what would you like to improve ?

[semicolo]

But the picture width should be 504 or 518 pixels so we would have cards of 36 or 37 pixels by 49

Edited by semicolo, Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:20 PM.

[karri]

semicolo, on Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:19 PM, said:

But the picture width should be 504 or 518 pixels so we would have cards of 36 or 37 pixels by 49

Well...

There is one back-side on the deck also.

(14+1) * 34 pixels = 510 pixels

So one card is really 34 by 49 pixels.

To tell you the truth I have not taken the time to analyse the quality yet. I just grabbed the default card deck from the Kde distro, scaled it to Lynx resolution using cubic interpolation and sharpened the image in Gimp.

But I thought that the kings K was a bit unreadable and some clubs looked a bit messy. So just going through the pixels in high res to see if it could be improved would be nice.

One cute thing would be to round the card corners a bit with transparent pixels to give it a more professional touch. Also the card borders could be replaced by a sharp 1-pixel solid line.

What would be fun is to have the Fuji logo on the back of the deck and perhaps the Lynx logo also.

But you are really free to do whatever you want with it.

--
Regards,

Karri

PS. I just looked at the card in 400% zoom in Gimp and they really need some cleanup in several places. The number 10 is almost unreadable.

Edited by karri, Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:11 PM.

[karri]

Actually 35 by 49 would be better than 34 by 49 as I could make the middle pixel the hot spot. It would simplify coding.

I have included here the original cards before downscaling to help you in doing this.

--
Karri

[Gregory DG]

I know this is kinda off the subject, but I wish there had been a Star Trek: TNG Poker game back in the day. I actually wrote one for the Atari ST using STOS. You could play against all the regular poker players from the show: Riker, Troi, Worf, Data, Dr. Crusher... And they all had their own style of play too.

Anyway... Just thinking something like that might be cool for the Lynx. Or at least maybe some unique card designs instead of the standard Hoyle ones...

Edited by Gregory DG, Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:53 PM.

[semicolo]

In fact I took the back side into account so there are 13+1 cards and you'll end up with 37x49
Here's a first draft, I cleaned the hearts, spades... did a solid border with vaguely round edges and tried to fit everything on the 10 hearts, seems ok to me