Re: AisleRiot fullscreen mode

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Vincent Povirk wrote:

> Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 18:47:14 -0400
> From: Vincent Povirk <madewokherd+d41d gmail com>
> To: Sean <suseux googlemail com>
> Cc: games-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: AisleRiot fullscreen mode
>
> Hi, Sean.
>
> Klondike is one of the better-coded games in aisleriot, and it's
> fairly simple, for programmers at least, to change the number of cards
> dealt and the number of redeals independently. So this is really a
> policy decision, not a technical one. I think having two options that
> could be set independently (1 or 3 card deals, 2 or unlimited redeals)
> was deemed too confusing for some reason.

My recollection on this is fuzzy but I wasn't pleased about the merging of
some of the game options given that I was going the other direction try to
add more variations and programs such as Pretty Good Solitaire use the
multitude of game variations as a way to show off how many games they
offer.  In terms of usability and avoiding confusion my preference in this
case would be to use good defaults ("priciple of least astonishment")
rather than to remove these options.  Anyone who has looked at the code
long enough knows many of these games are not fundamentally very different
even if they are recongised as different games.

> We should definitely provide Klondike with 1-card deals and unlimited
> redeals if someone wants to play it that way. We should be able to
> make them independent options or, if there's a name for that
> variation, add it as a separate game, but that's a policy decision so
> I can make no promises there. Anyone?

I realise it isn't the ideal conclusive answer developers prefer but I
always cite an existing precedent and Pretty Good Solitaire is the one for
me in the case of card games.  Roughly speaking the way it does things is
to set defaults (eg King Only - only a king may be moved into an empty
slot) but also provide a simple option to override some those defaults at
any point during the game by unchecking a menu item.

There is an interesting conflict between gameplay and usability as there
are times when in the name of gameplay it makes sense to make things more
difficult (challenging) but there is the risk of taking the fun out of it
for beginners.  (A familiar example of this in Gnome Games might be the
difficulty of Four in Row as many have complained it is too hard to win
even at the easiest levels.)

I did have a brief phase where I happily added more variations to
Aisleriot (trying to generalise some files and keep the inherit their code
into the varient) and from that I gradually saw how the codebase could be
cleaned up in various ways and certain patterns consolidated but
realistically it isn't something I have the motivation to follow up on now
that I'm no longer a student but I still watch the development of Gnome
Games with great interest.

-- 
Alan

P.S. The Games collection in KDE 4 is set to catch up and even surpass
Gnome Games as they have begun to use scalable graphics in their games and
they have a few artists actively contributing some beautiful tilesets for
Mahjongg (and Shisen-Sho which shares tilesets).
http://piacentini.livejournal.com/3217.html
http://maupiacentini.blogspot.com/2007/03/shisen-sho-updates.html
Of course these things happen in leaps and bounds anyway, taking turns to
be the group leading the way.