LackeyCCG for Board Games

[Trevor]

but the chitz and the like are all visually different. Like on one screen they will be touching, in another they will be far away form each other. What setting do you need to set to make them appear exactly the same in each screen. I have tested a lot (on my desktop and my laptop) and have never once been able to get the board set-ups to look the same. I mean I am sure you are right, but I can not work it out.

Not sure what you mean by "chitz". Send me a picture to show me what you're talking about.

[Jynks]

chitz are just like a "card" it is a object like say a wound marker... or w/e...

I'll make a few screenshots.. I am experimenting with translating Dungeons and Dragon's - Wrath of Ashardalon

Witch uses a deck to make the player board (as you explore the dungeon you reveal a new tile) Each card is divided into squares for placement, so the chitz (player icons in this case) need to sit in exact positions ontop of these revealed dungeon cards. It uses "markers" like for example a flame marker (similar to Decent) that you need to place hard against the base of the model casting the flame spell and it creates an area affect flame blast if you are in it you get wounded. So you need to be able to place cards freely, with out the grid getting in the way, the same goes for measuring sticks. It usesd other cards to create areas on the board, like say a acid spill, again using exact positioning and scale...

Anyway, I'll make some screenshots for you.

[valiante]

Hi Tragik

I would like to ask if you finished the plugin for the Wrath of Ashardalon? If yes will you please publish it? I love the game, and I would like to play it in the Lackey.

One question to Trevor:
I look for but I don't find: Is there function for the card like lock them? I mean that I place a card to the board and right click I lock it, so no way to move it, and if I want to move it an other right click to unlock it. If there is can you tell me how, if there is no, do you think a near update you can make it? In a board game it can be very useful not to move the dungeon tiles when we want to move something else.
Thank you

[Trevor]

Hi Tragik

I would like to ask if you finished the plugin for the Wrath of Ashardalon? If yes will you please publish it? I love the game, and I would like to play it in the Lackey.

One question to Trevor:
I look for but I don't find: Is there function for the card like lock them? I mean that I place a card to the board and right click I lock it, so no way to move it, and if I want to move it an other right click to unlock it. If there is can you tell me how, if there is no, do you think a near update you can make it? In a board game it can be very useful not to move the dungeon tiles when we want to move something else.
Thank you

There is a function now to lock a card to make it not turn when you do a turn all function, but that's not what you mean. WHat you are talking about would be useful and easy for me to implement, so I shall implement it soon.

If there are any other sorts of functions needed for board games, let me know.

[innuendo]

Trevor, a small one that might be nice is "move [zone] to table"

What i would hope to happen is the whole zone is moved to one spot (stacked) on the table.

This would be very useful for a lot of reasons. And should be pretty code light. The stack of cards doesn't need to act any different than any other stack of cards, It would simply take the bottom card of the zone, put it down at the location, and then repeat that until the zone is empty.

Nothing special once on the table, just a stack of cards at the center of the table that I could move around from there. Would probably disable this while "cards can completely cover other cards" is off. The cards would need to complete cover each other less they might take up the whole dang screen.

[valiante]

Hi Trevo,
Thank you very much. 
May be as you say it will be easy to implement it I would like to add somethin go this to make your work a little bit harder.  Can you make it plase that when you lock the card, it stays on the bottom layer always? I mean the locked card can never cover a card above it.

Other thing, if it is possible to turn off the snap grid. I try to change the snap grid smaller than the default (0.03) it doesn't change. I try with 0.2 or 0.1 but no result so I think without the snap it can be really easy.

Thanks a lot again

[Trevor]

Trevor, a small one that might be nice is "move [zone] to table"

What i would hope to happen is the whole zone is moved to one spot (stacked) on the table.

This would be very useful for a lot of reasons. And should be pretty code light. The stack of cards doesn't need to act any different than any other stack of cards, It would simply take the bottom card of the zone, put it down at the location, and then repeat that until the zone is empty.

Nothing special once on the table, just a stack of cards at the center of the table that I could move around from there. Would probably disable this while "cards can completely cover other cards" is off. The cards would need to complete cover each other less they might take up the whole dang screen.

I think this is more a failure of imagination. In the real world, there are stacks of cards on the table, and random cards (not in piles) on the table. In Lackey, the random cards (not in piles) are those seen on the table area. The game zones are for the piles of cards. If you want to think of the game zones as piles of cards of the table, you can think of them that way. When it comes down to it, a pile of cards needs additional things (like the ability to shuffle it for example) and there is no practical use to make a pile of cards visually appear in the table area, other than to help people who can only conceptualize it that way.

A deck doesn't need to be on the table, and the only reason you really do that with a physical deck is because there is nothing besides the table.

[Trevor]

Hi Trevo,
Thank you very much. 
May be as you say it will be easy to implement it I would like to add somethin go this to make your work a little bit harder.  Can you make it plase that when you lock the card, it stays on the bottom layer always? I mean the locked card can never cover a card above it.

Other thing, if it is possible to turn off the snap grid. I try to change the snap grid smaller than the default (0.03) it doesn't change. I try with 0.2 or 0.1 but no result so I think without the snap it can be really easy.

Thanks a lot again

I was thinking of making locked cards drawn underneath. How that will work is, once locked, those items can be selected as normal, but no functions will affect them (besides the unlock function) and they cannot be moved (except by global functions like clearing the table or starting a new game).

Regarding snap to grid, you can't turn it off, but you can do many different things to the grid, including making it small. A very small grid size is indistinguishable from no grid, and if you have trouble changing the grid size after reading the tutorial, ask me your questions.

[valiante]

Hi Trevor

The card locking will be great like you describe it. Thank you very much. 

About the grid I check it again, but the same result.
As you say in the tutorial the default setting of the grid is .03. This is correct, because a plugininfo.txt with the line GRIDSIZE:".003" gives the same result like without this line. If I change the value of the GRIDSIZE higher, like GRIDSIZE:"1"the result is good, so this is correct also, but when I put the GRIDSIZE:".001" the result is the same like the GRIDSIZE:".003". So as I see the GRIDSIZE works well betrween 0.03 and higher numbers, but for me the lower numbers gives the same result like the GRIDSIZE:".003".

Can you please check if it work well, or how can I set the grid size smaller than 0.03?

Thanks a lot

Cheers

[Trevor]

Hi Trevor

The card locking will be great like you describe it. Thank you very much. 

About the grid I check it again, but the same result.
As you say in the tutorial the default setting of the grid is .03. This is correct, because a plugininfo.txt with the line GRIDSIZE:".003" gives the same result like without this line. If I change the value of the GRIDSIZE higher, like GRIDSIZE:"1"the result is good, so this is correct also, but when I put the GRIDSIZE:".001" the result is the same like the GRIDSIZE:".003". So as I see the GRIDSIZE works well betrween 0.03 and higher numbers, but for me the lower numbers gives the same result like the GRIDSIZE:".003".

Can you please check if it work well, or how can I set the grid size smaller than 0.03?

Thanks a lot

Cheers

Currently, valid grid sizes are between .01 and 1. Enter anything else and it will use the default value, which is .03.

EDIT: I just checked and noticed that the minimum is actually slightly higher than .01, like .011 or so.

Try
<definition><kind>GRIDSIZE</kind><value>0.011</value></definition>

[valiante]

Hi Trevor

Thanks for the help, the 0.011 work well. Here is a picture how I can put the dungeon tiles next to eachthem.


Tell me when the card locking will be on.

Thanks again

[innuendo]

The goal of my suggestion was not to put a deck on the table. It was to put any zone on the table in one stack. This is useful in board games for loads of common actions. Especially in games where the top card of a group of decks is already revealed, as in a fair number of deck builder games.

Other things better accomplished with this method:

"place your hand under this card"
"Place all player decks in the middle of the table, each player then chooses one"

Frankly, I don't care how unimaginative you think it is. It's virtually no code to write, and I can think of a lot of uses for it in board games I play. Isn't that enough?

[Trevor]

The goal of my suggestion was not to put a deck on the table. It was to put any zone on the table in one stack. This is useful in board games for loads of common actions. Especially in games where the top card of a group of decks is already revealed, as in a fair number of deck builder games.

In lackey, there are game zones, and then there is the table zone, which is a kind of game zone. Decks, discard piles, hands, and others are game zones, and those are handled with the functionality needed for them (such as space, browseability, and modularity). If you try to put those on the table with the other cards, it would necessarily be a poor incarnation, and I think it would confuse people, especially because there are other (in my opinion superior) methods for looking at zones, and I don't think you are suggesting to remove those other methods in favor of this new paradigm. Are you talking about a simple placeholder item for a zone on the table? If so, I don't see the point of using that over the current methods. Maybe I am not understanding what you mean. Perhaps post a mock up of what you want?

Frankly, I don't care how unimaginative you think it is. It's virtually no code to write, and I can think of a lot of uses for it in board games I play. Isn't that enough?

As far as I am aware, the physical placement of a deck is not used in any game, so it is strictly not necessary.
It is actually a lot of code to write to handle piles of cards together on the table. I'm not sure why you would assert otherwise.
People might think they should see decks on the table, and for that reason alone, it might be a good thing to add, but there are also bad things about having it even as an option. It complicates the interface, and I think it would do so a disproportionate amount to what it gives. It may be a good idea in theory, but I don't think it would work well in practice, or at least I haven't figure out a way it can be done well. I've given it a lot of thought and there are a lot of things against it that are not immediately obvious.

"place your hand under this card"
"Place all player decks in the middle of the table, each player then chooses one"

Those effects are extremely rare (if they ever happen) and if they were to occur I think they would be better handled a different way than by a physical deck appearing on the table. As I said, this is all an abstraction. Consider the whole window as "the table" and the cards will be on the table.

[innuendo]

You seem to miss what I want.

I don't want the deck zone to be on the table. I want to be able to take the cards from a zone, and stack them on the table. At that point they would no longer be a deck. They would be a stack of cards on the table.

I could do this currently by dragging single cards at a time from the zone to the table. The method in list form would be as follows:

• Take bottom card of the zone, move it to table at location (x,y)
• repeat 1 until zone is empty

This is why I say it would be code light. It's a menu option that calls a function you already have "move card to table" and repeats it until the zone is empty. Like I said, at that point it's no longer that zone, they are just cards on the table.

I agree with you that putting deck zones on the table is confusing. So I don't want the zones to appear on the table. But I want to be able to mass move a zone to the table in one location. Right now if drag and drop the cards they appear in one big long line, making it impractical to move a zone more than 5 or so cards large this way.

[Trevor]

You seem to miss what I want.

I don't want the deck zone to be on the table. I want to be able to take the cards from a zone, and stack them on the table. At that point they would no longer be a deck. They would be a stack of cards on the table.

I could do this currently by dragging single cards at a time from the zone to the table. The method in list form would be as follows:

• Take bottom card of the zone, move it to table at location (x,y)
• repeat 1 until zone is empty

This is why I say it would be code light. It's a menu option that calls a function you already have "move card to table" and repeats it until the zone is empty. Like I said, at that point it's no longer that zone, they are just cards on the table.

I agree with you that putting deck zones on the table is confusing. So I don't want the zones to appear on the table. But I want to be able to mass move a zone to the table in one location. Right now if drag and drop the cards they appear in one big long line, making it impractical to move a zone more than 5 or so cards large this way.

If that is what you want, I don't think it would actually be that useful. Try it. Make a stack with that manual method. I think people expect to be able to treat such a stack as a pile of cards, which you can't really do without a control structure. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are trying to emulate a pile of cards, right? Are you talking about a use like the community chest deck is on the table of a monopoly board?
Monopoly is an example of the sort of thing I was talking about. While there is a specific area of the board that the community chest cards are put, that is actually a proper deck and should be treated as a game zone in lackey and not actually appear on the "table".

Try it manually, and let me know if it is actually useful. Even if it is, I think it would confuse people who expected such a thing to work like a proper deck.