LackeyCCG ideas + mockup (fake, photoshopped screenshot)

[zeemeerman2]

I find the Lackey interface a bit overwhelming at times.. Therefore, I created this mockup of a much cleaner interface for Lackey. Note that it is purely a photoshopped image and not the preview of an upcoming release of Lackey. Well, as far as I know.

It is designed with Magic: The Gathering in mind. With minor

I forgot the undo button to reset your progress, my bad. (for friendly house games where you're like "Oh, wait, I forgot something (ability to use Regenerate or something in the like). Please can I do that again?") I also forgot a chat window... 

Also, commands like Tap, Untap or Discard are hidden until you need them. There is still some place at the left side and buttons will appear when you select the right card. As well as the offer of tokens, counters, etc... Or they could be in right-click menus. Your choice.

The buttons at the right change depending on your current phase. In your upkeep phase, a button will appear to untap all permanents, while in your draw phase, you're offered to draw a card, as well as noting how many cards you have left in your deck. Which seems logical, even if it means that your remaining cards counter will be twice on the screen, the other one in the bottom left corner.

A card will be enlarged when you mouse-over them, Mac (or ObjectDock) dock style, as well as a preview at the top right with additional notes, if it's too blurry to read.

The Card Creator links to Magic Set Editor 2, where you can clearly notice this is merely a mockup, since MSE isn't being actively developed for Mac.

Action editor links to automation settings, like if a card in play notes "At the beginning of your turn, you gain 1 life." it will happen, without you worrying to not forget it in the heat of a battle. You can still turn it off, tho.

In the extension of it, a popup might appear that notes you when you break a rule and if you still wish to continue with your action. (e.g. block a flying creature with a creature without flying or reach; or attacking as a Defender) Toggling it off will disable the popup.

Well, these are some ideas. Let me know what your opinions are. 

[Gordon228]

you forgot tokens so it's far from complete and it looks good. something to consider but still the way lacky is set up is also good

[Wisp]

I love this.

What do you think trevor?

[Trevor]

I find the Lackey interface a bit overwhelming at times.. Therefore, I created this mockup of a much cleaner interface for Lackey. Note that it is purely a photoshopped image and not the preview of an upcoming release of Lackey. Well, as far as I know.

It is designed with Magic: The Gathering in mind. With minor

I forgot the undo button to reset your progress, my bad. (for friendly house games where you're like "Oh, wait, I forgot something (ability to use Regenerate or something in the like). Please can I do that again?") I also forgot a chat window... 

Also, commands like Tap, Untap or Discard are hidden until you need them. There is still some place at the left side and buttons will appear when you select the right card. As well as the offer of tokens, counters, etc... Or they could be in right-click menus. Your choice.

The buttons at the right change depending on your current phase. In your upkeep phase, a button will appear to untap all permanents, while in your draw phase, you're offered to draw a card, as well as noting how many cards you have left in your deck. Which seems logical, even if it means that your remaining cards counter will be twice on the screen, the other one in the bottom left corner.

A card will be enlarged when you mouse-over them, Mac (or ObjectDock) dock style, as well as a preview at the top right with additional notes, if it's too blurry to read.

The Card Creator links to Magic Set Editor 2, where you can clearly notice this is merely a mockup, since MSE isn't being actively developed for Mac.

Action editor links to automation settings, like if a card in play notes "At the beginning of your turn, you gain 1 life." it will happen, without you worrying to not forget it in the heat of a battle. You can still turn it off, tho.

In the extension of it, a popup might appear that notes you when you break a rule and if you still wish to continue with your action. (e.g. block a flying creature with a creature without flying or reach; or attacking as a Defender) Toggling it off will disable the popup.

Well, these are some ideas. Let me know what your opinions are. 

Hi. I love these kinds of suggestions because at the very least, it lets me reevaluate the choices I've made. You clearly put a lot of effort it the mockup, but please to take any offense to my comments.

You may find the lackey interface overwhelming, and some other people have reported as much, but everything has been included because I think the increased utility outweighs the additional complexity of the interface. As a matter of fact, people constantly tell me "you should add X" to the interface, and I reply that it doesn't add enough utility to justify complicating the interface.

First off, it is important to note that I designed the interface so that it would work for any CCG, both existing and yet-to-exist. At least, that was my intent. Since many different CCGs have very different elements, its hard to make one design that is versatile enough to apply to all CCGs. Your design might work OK for magic, but what about a game like Lord of the Rings (Decipher) that uses a global stat (e.g., twilight)?

Similarly, I designed an interface that would work with all different card sizes. For example, when you have a large card 300+ pixels wide, the phase of turn buttons will lay out horizonally (space-permitting).

You say the current interface is too complicated, but looking at your interface, there is just so many things you can't do there that you can with LackeyCCG. For example, with player stats, lackey lets you add 1, subtract 1, set to zero, set to a typed number, add or subtract a typed number. With function buttons, Lackey lets you click a simple button to do a whole bunch of different things, such as untapping all your cards. That row of buttons seems to be one of the things you perceive as too complicated, but they add tons of utility your interface does not. You could say that you have all of this hidden within menus, but I think that's even harder to use. Sure, that method provides for a less daunting initial glance at the program, but it makes it a lot harder to find out how to do something when you are trying to do something.

You have a lot less status indicators than the current Lackey interface. People like to be able to look at a glance and see what phase of the turn it is (in relation to the turn), or how many cards are in the discard pile. Your design doesn't appear to show either. If you want to set it to the second phase, and its the 6th phase, would you require people to increment and decrement a bunch of times? With the current interface, you just select the phase you want, for those times it helps communicate to your opponent.

I think your design also wastes a lot of space. The buttons at the top, such as the deck builder and preferences buttons, are way too huge. In your diagram, it is more than 12% of your entire window. Lackey wastes far less space to do this, and the tab interface element gives you visual feedback as far as which one is currently selected. You have icons there, but I don't think they warrant the huge amount of space allotted to them.

You don't have a lot of things, like elements to control the zoom, pan, tilt, and markings on the table. Your design doesn't seem to allow for skins, or background images, or extremely important things like chat. Lackey has a nice chat window and space for canned message buttons (which doubles as canned functions like /draw7). Lackey allows you to easily drag a card from one player's discard pile to another player's removed from the game pile. There are many ways to do most things with the current interface.

Your attempt to hide buttons (like tap, untap, discard) "until you need them" seems like it would irk some, and infuriate others. People will want to do any of those functions any time they want to. Also, people often ignore phase of turn buttons in order to speed up gameplay. Your design wouldn't allow for that. Also, I think it's bad interface design to have elements constantly changing for the user. If a user learns how to draw a card by clicking on a button, that user will get annoyed and confused if they want to draw a card and the button they used before isn't there, or is somewhere else.

The mac doc style of zooming in on a card looks nice, but many people find it very irritating how things constantly change in size. If I were to add that option, I would at least have to make it not on by default. And I don't really think it adds anything. Already, you can quickzoom cards (which I don't think many people are aware of) and you ca freely resize the area so you can read cards.

Action editors I think are a bad idea that only superficially seems like a good idea. Action editors would necessarily be very complicated, and automation of things is more headache than its worth. Consider the example you gave, of creating an automation for gaining 1 life at the beginning of your turn. Let us assume that the interface for the action editor (which you don't have pictured) is extremely user-friendly, intuitive, and perfectly designed. First off, with the ability to make automations for things as trivial as gaining a life each turn, people get the idea that they are supposed to make automations like that. They will try to set up automations for various things, and they will start thinking a lot more about automations instead of focusing on the fun aspect, which is actually making decks and playing. Lets suppose you make an automation for gaining a life each turn, but you accidentally pass the turn twice by clicking the "Next plater's turn" button. You have already gained the life, and now you must fix the mistake. Also, this forces people to use the phase buttons properly, which is often a huge speed bump to quick play. And whenever you play a new ability (that you spent time previously making an automation for) thats one more automation you need to turn on. And whenever the ability to make you gain life goes away, that's one more tedious thing to remove. A far simpler method that works a lot better in practice is to simply click +1 life every turn. It's simple, it's controlled, and you can use it manually and with your own human common sense. Lackey doesn't force things (like automation) because people know what to do and when to do with better than an AI, and automation is far more trouble than its worth.

The same goes for the notice if you break a rule. That's far more trouble than its worth, and it takes away your control. Every interface I have seen that actually attempts rules is ridiculously complex. In reality, card games are very complicated. Every time you could do something, you need to "pass" on your ability to do something. While playing with real cards, you don't do this because humans can judge based on the context. Rules forcing, or even rules reminders, would require a framework imposed onto a game that will cripple the ability to play fast and fun games.

Keep making suggestions and I will gladly consider them.

[Trevor]

People have occassionsally said the current interface is confusing/complicated, but no one seems to be able to tell me exactly what they find confusing/complicated.

[d3vtr0n]

People have occassionsally said the current interface is confusing/complicated, but no one seems to be able to tell me exactly what they find confusing/complicated.

i think their only problem is that lackey is a tad overwhelming the first time playing, and your unsure of what buttons do what
but once you play a couple matches and watch the tutorials, its alllllllllllll goooooooodddd

[Picks-at-Flies]

I've run a couple of people through Lackey recently, and it's noticeable that, at first, they can't find whichever function you point them to, but as they get used to the interface it becomes a lot quicker to find things.  I have a slight worry that people stick to the method they have been taught to do X*, but at least they can do it.  I suspect that this highlights the nature of Lackey, of Function over Form, but the function works so why break it?

* Hmm, could we have a message of the day/tips and tricks option?  I'm sure we could come up with 30+ tips that could be added as a file, maybe to pop-up the first time you connect to a server each session?

[Trevor]

* Hmm, could we have a message of the day/tips and tricks option?  I'm sure we could come up with 30+ tips that could be added as a file, maybe to pop-up the first time you connect to a server each session?

Interesting idea, but those usually appear during a wait time, like loading. Lackey does have any loading times like that. And something that just randomly pops up would probably just be annoying. I think I should just make the tutorials better and more accessible with more videos.

[Dragoon]

Please refrain from using pop-ups. There is a reason why pop-up blockers are among the highest download rates on chrome.

I do like tips however, so I suggest you either make tips show during loading screens or make some youtube video's.

EDIT: Full Member? YEAH!

[Trevor]

Please refrain from using pop-ups. There is a reason why pop-up blockers are among the highest download rates on chrome.

I do like tips however, so I suggest you either make tips show during loading screens or make some youtube video's.

I fairly recently added popups, but only for essential things, like notifying someone where their attention is needed.

There are no loading screens, so I can't put tips there.

[Picks-at-Flies]

What about adding a couple of lines to the Server tab (between the server frame and the chat window)?  Have a random tip appear there when you startup Lackey?

While we're talking about this, I think the plugin preference page is currently very unclear.  I'm too busy to do it properly but, maybe something like the attached (essentially moving image downloads to current plugin, and then making the autoupdate much clearer).

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[Trevor]

I should make the plugin finder a lot more simple to use, especially because that's the first thing new users see. I will do that soon.

[AdLit]

I don't think that lackey is too cluttered or complicated at all.  While everyone I've taught to play has initially said "holy crap" to all the buttons, they very quickly find it not only uncomplicated, but easy and very appropriately constructed so that any function needed is very easily and quickly available.  I think that the biggest difference between Lackey and your current mock-up is really just the graphical view - in other words, a more airbrushed or modernized look.  Perhaps consider trying a mock-up that would keep the current functions but with your vision in terms of the aesthetics?  One way to achieve the "minimalist" look you're going for may be to remove the menu tabs at the top of the screen and have it simply be a button that would make the tabs pop in or out.  Another option may be to include within the preferences things such as "phase (yes or no)" so that people (like myself) who choose not to use the phase buttons to streamline the game can simply do away with them in the interface, thus cleaning it up a bit.  If I was better at photoshop I'd try to throw in a picture to better illustrate what I'm thinking but, alas, I can't translate my imagination into the "real world"  

[AdLit]

I'm finally off for a few days after tomorrow, and hopefully tomorrow will be slow 'cause of the holiday.  I'm going to try my hand at a mock-up and see how far I can get.  I like the idea of tweaking the interface a bit, making it more mordern (or "apple-y" like your version), as long as it maintains the functionality it currently has.  We'll see what I can do.  I'll post here if I get anywhere that I'm not ashamed to share.

[Trevor]

I'm finally off for a few days after tomorrow, and hopefully tomorrow will be slow 'cause of the holiday.  I'm going to try my hand at a mock-up and see how far I can get.  I like the idea of tweaking the interface a bit, making it more mordern (or "apple-y" like your version), as long as it maintains the functionality it currently has.  We'll see what I can do.  I'll post here if I get anywhere that I'm not ashamed to share.

Making the interface more "apple-y" is not an option because those GUI elements can only be used by mac-only programs. That's why you don't see windows programs look like that. Also, I don't want Lackey to look "apple-y" or "windows-y". The interface is the same regardless what operating system you have so things are consistent.

Any suggestions regarding changes to the interface should be done with that in mind. Come up with ideas like where to place GUI elements. What should be added or hidden, or done in a different way. Not what color and feel buttons should have.

And remember, Lackey is used by many CCGs, and the card image sizes vary a lot too. Any design I implement needs to be flexible enough to work with any CCG that comes along.