The Back Room: Live Tabletop Games - 2012-04-09

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12:29 AM

@Jin that's fine, I assumed, holidays can get crazy

@waxeagle i'm almost done.. but having a tough time with the voting arrows..

they always give me the hardest time!

@Jin I understand that, they are one of the smallest, but most important elements of any site

@waxeagle yeah, they're the most visible, and most used icons on the site too.

i have two styles i'm playing with now

one set is almost "jewel" like, 3d, very elaborate

the other style is like a pencil sketch style, 2d, hand drawn

seems like either would work incredibly well...

yeah, therefor the hard time i'm having lol.

actually, i'll just go with the jewel one

and you guys be the judge once i post the designs

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:25 AM

@Jin Point of order, what about actual arrowheads?

sorry, I should just wait :)

yours are alomst certainly better

@BrianBallsunStanton I can show you a sneak peek at the arrows in a few mins

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

whee, port

you're awesome, mate.

I have to look at the arrows from the whole design pov

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

oh, right

so it's not just about the arrow icons themselves, it's also about how they blend in with the rest of the design too

so everything looks like one complete package, nothing looks out of place

that's why i abandoned the sketchy hand drawn style. they just didn't fit in with the rest of the design

1:36 AM

@Jin fair enough

@CRoss sketchy will return though :)

for RPG, it's actually 2 designs.

main 'n meta

@Jin any other sites that way?

@Jin cool, never noticed the nighttime meta

also, did you manually do that, or do the sites autobox now?

@CRoss yeah it was suggested by a user, i thought it was a neat idea.

@CRoss it's auto one-box in chat

user image

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:45 AM

.... oh that's nice.

nice runic thing.

yeah i wanted to include some fantasy elements

i did something similar on our scifi 'n fantasy site

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

and white is unselected?

yes. by default, all the "off states" are gray

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mmm

i have to play with it some more. i want to make sure there's no confusion

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:47 AM

spear and broken spear could work...

mmm, and the triangle alludes to d4

i used an arrow head shape first

but it didn't look too much like an upvote arrow to me

i guess it's because of the width:height ratio at that small size

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mmmm

you'd actually need the arrow

not just the arrowhead

and yeah, the pixel budget is rough

the look i was going after is a piece of gem on a stone plate

I don't think I got the glass look quite right yet

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Ah

go for d4 instead

good idea

lemme see if it shows up well

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:55 AM

very easy to evoke, very iconic?

(don't listen to me)

gamescience.com/4-sideddice

yes, but at that small size, sometimes the subtlety may be lost. but lemme try.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Actually! the trick would be to do the d4 for downvote and maybe d8 for up?

1d4

1d8

6

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

so you get pointing....

no, the d8 is hard.

hmm but i prefer the shape of the whole arrow to be a triangle

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

1:56 AM

yes, in that case...

user image

you don't need numbers, but the lines should work even small

user image

like that?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yes

YES

ok i'll go with that. i like it better than the plain triangle

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

that's a "d4" and "arrow" ... though the down one is...

It works qua arrow

but sometimes my brain doesn't see it as pointing down

well, i don't think it needs to be 100% technically correct.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:00 AM

nonono

the idea here is it should be an arrow first

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

sorry, not communicating effectively now.

oh, huh, you did just invert it, didn't you?

then when people get the subtlety in it, they may appreciate it more? to me, both up and down state look like arrows.

yeah i did, but i can do something else for the down arrow?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

the up arrow is perfect... let me...

oooh, let me see if I can't get an image of my die balancing

brb, dice bag

oh i think i know what you're saying..

the down arrow's perspective is wrong?

since i just inverted it from the up arrow state

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:02 AM

yeah

lets see if this works

i'm having a brain fart, about how the down arrow should look like..

trying to imagine the die upside down

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

user image

for up arrows

only the 3rd die is the d4 right?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

user image

correct

had to hold the d4 pointing down

can you hold it with the edge pointing to you in the center?

so the entire outline of the die is in the shape of a triangle

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:07 AM

mmmm

i guess the top edge should be a flat horizontal line

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

trying now

user image

user image

either of those work?

I'm almost thinking the d8 works better?

or d10 with that shading.

can take more pictures, of course. I very much want to help :)

i got it, thx!

user image

i'll have to play with the shading some, so both up and down arrows have consistent gloss.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yep, that's the ticket

but as far as the shapes you, you thin they're ok?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:19 AM

yeah

my only concern is that people may not know they're voting arrows(new users)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

that's both iconically "down" and "d4"

mmmm

but we'll see.

i really like incorporating dice into the arrows though.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

how committed are you to circle and triangle?

i'm not committed to anything :)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:20 AM

mmmmm

but i just want to present to the community something first

then get some feedbacks

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

::nod::

i'm open to change anything really

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mmm, yeah, I'd submit to community.

yeah it's always a balancing act when it comes to design

i don't want it to be too clever, and lose the functionality of the icons.

i tried some fancy arrows in the past, but didn't work out too well

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:21 AM

well, my first instinct would be to add 2d6 to provide "arrow"

but ... yeah

ultimately, people have to know that they're arrows

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

and you can't use colour cues?

cause a green wash and red wash would provide useful reinforcement

what's a green/red wash?

you mean for the "on state?"

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

no

for the off state

green is usually associated with good, red with bad.

for the off state, i normally use something gray. so it's netural

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:23 AM

mmmm

so there are really only two states

on 'n off. same for the fav. star too.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

mmm

no, this requires looking at how newcomers associate these things

cause people here know the gig. And without colour cues life is rather harder

user image

for the rune circle

is the grey-green I was thinking of

just to provide a secondary prompting. But it does eliminate your aesthetic.

but green on our sites is reserved for "accepted answers"

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

::nod::

This is actually a hard problem.

user image

i think it is OK for now. we just need to have a strong indicator that you either upvoted or downvoted, or haven't done both

the gray vs blue conveys that now.

and I like the shapes of the arrows. thx for the d4 suggestion!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:28 AM

My pleasure :)

anyway, i need to step away from the computer for a bit, wife wants me to watch Mad Men with her. I'll be posting the designs on Meta tonight

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

::raises a glass of port in your general direction::

oops, in the last mockup pasted, the upvote arrow is wrong

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

... aaaactually

what if they "popped" on vote?

then you get your nod but your iconic triangles?

no, bad idea

actually

user image

does that look better to you? as in, the upvote arrows still looks like a d4?

i like it because both arrows have the same outlined shapes

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:37 AM

yeah, the upvote looks like a d4

there are still 3 strong faces

ok.

great.

anyway, Don Draper is calling.. brb

@Jin yeah, both look like D4s to me. In the top down position.

@waxeagle thx!

i have to say, this is the most elaborate voting arrows i've ever made out of all SE sites :)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

:)

those runes must have taken a while

@BrianBallsunStanton yeah. it's a celtic knot pattern actually

user image

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:40 AM

oh nice

3:20 AM

@BrianBallsunStanton so if I use red for "on state" for the voting arrows, that's bad right?

because red = bad in rpg?

3:32 AM

@Jin I think more just red = bad culturally

@waxeagle we use red as on state on math.se and serverfault

@Jin interesting.

user image

@waxeagle this is really a personal preference almost..

but i feel the red blends in well with the earth toned color scheme of the overall design

@Jin actually yeah it does work well, try it an see if anyone complains :). (also if they are dice, they could totally be any color :))

@waxeagle good point!

3:44 AM

chessex.com this is probably the most prolific brand in gaming dice...

just look at all the pretty colors :)

i'm spending 70% of the total time on the last 30% of the actual design...

i guess that's how it normally works... details details details

@Jin yep :) but it the attention to detail that's so important.

@waxeagle yeah. since I have a lot more time to design these SE sites now, I want to add a lot more details.

@Jin much appreciated :).

@Jin great talking to you, and oh so looking forward to seeing the results, will be back in the morning to check them out.

@waxeagle i won't go to bed until the meta post is up :)

3:54 AM

@Jin Thanks! Very much looking foward to it.

3 hours later…

7:05 AM

posted!

1

Q: Design for RPG.se

thank you for your helpful suggestions in the design brainstorming post. I am very excited to present to the community the design I've been working on. The overall look and feel I'm going after is a warm and welcoming theme that reflects tabletop RPG gaming. It should capture the visual element...

discussion featured design

4 hours later…

11:03 AM

@Jin It looks awesome

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

11:53 AM

@Jin It looks completely awesome

3 hours later…

3:13 PM

→ 24 messages moved to The Game Table

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

awwww...

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