HELP

[Catoptromancy]

Do we really need a HELP screen to show people the default controls? Every port allows them to be rebound and player will look into menu to see what the controls are.

I was thinking about putting the start/introduction of the story on the help screen. The story progresses on map07 with the intermission text.

FreeDM could have a nice graphic and a "kill em all" style slogan.

Maybe some freedoom info for that specific wad also? I just think HELP is useless these days and could be used for something useful.

[Z0k]

why not make the "Help" screen with info about the items you can find in the game and what those items do once you get them? i guess that way help screen would be useful in some way. i think with the amount of items its enough to fill the help screen.

[joe-ilya]

Z0k said:

why not make the "Help" screen with info about the items you can find in the game and what those items do once you get them? i guess that way help screen would be useful in some way. i think with the amount of items its enough to fill the help screen.

You're thinking about Commander keen aren't you?

[Z0k]

along those lines yeah, since Catoptromancy point its right about adding the "controls" keys would be kinda pointless, i think would be better to add items information.

of course would be useless for people who already know about doom, but for new people that could be helpful.

[fraggle]

Z0k said:

why not make the "Help" screen with info about the items you can find in the game and what those items do once you get them? i guess that way help screen would be useful in some way. i think with the amount of items its enough to fill the help screen.

This sounds like a good idea. I'd rather see this than story text.

The current help screen that shows the default controls isn't particularly helpful and can be outright misleading if the port uses something like WASD as the default (are there any ports that do this?). Regardless, with modern source ports it just makes more sense to let the user search the menus if they don't know the controls.

I think all the items and power-ups should fit on a single screen though it might be tight. It ought to be procedurally generated so we don't have to manually edit it every time one of the graphics changes.

How I imagine it potentially being laid out:

   Weapons                         Ammo
2. Shotgun          [weapon] [Shells]   [Box]
3. Double shotgun   [weapon]
4. Minigun          [weapon] [Clip]     [Box]
5. Missile launcher [weapon] [Missile]  [Box]
6. Energy cannon    [weapon] [Small]    [Large]
7. SKAG 1337        [weapon]

Keys      [Red][Red] [Yellow][Yellow] [Blue][Blue]

Health    [1%]  [Small] [Large] [Steroids]
Armor     [1%]  [Light] [Heavy]

[sprite]  [sprite]   Hazard suit [sprite]
Nite-vis   Map
[sprite]      [sprite]      [sprite] [sprite]
Overdrive  Ultra-overdrive   Stealth  Invuln

of course would be useless for people who already know about doom, but for new people that could be helpful.

Even for people who have played Doom, Freedoom's weapons and items look different anyway.

[fraggle]

fraggle said:

This sounds like a good idea. I'd rather see this than story text.

Decided to do this today, and just pushed my commit to implement it. Here's what the new HELP screen looks like:



It's a bit tight with all the items on one screen but I managed to fit it all in, in the end.