Re: [Enigma-devel] Odd screen resolutions

[Erich Schubert]

Hi,
Enigma Levels are designed for a specific screen size (in tiles,
20x13), so porting it to other screen sizes is really hard. While you
could of course 'extend' the view to show more, that might take the
whole idea out of some levels.
It probably is fine for levels that have smooth scrolling enabled, but
some levels intentionally use separate screens; sometimes you have to
discover where to pass through to the next screen.

It might have been possible to code the levels in a somewhat
size-independent manner (except that probably would make high scores
harder to compare!), but they currently are not, and I doubt many will
be willing to redo all the levels. (some compability flag might help
though)

What you could change is the general screen layout I guess. I.e. move
the inventory from the bottom to the side. Just make sure it can still
'obviously' contain only as many items as you are allowed to have.
And you'll need to replace the text messaging code as well. Maybe an
overlayed message display will do (squeezing it into the vertical
inventory probably is a bad idea)
For 800x480, using the 32x32 pixel tiles, you have room for 25x15
tiles. So you have 5 extra tiles to the right, you could use for the
inventory (instead of the bottom) and use one tile at the top and
bottom each for screen border. Or keep an area for scrolling text
there (otherwise you'd need to do text overlays).
If you'd create a tileset with 36x36 pixel tiles, you can fit 22x13 on
the screen with a small border everywhere. Then you'd have two tiles +
some extra space you probably need there!) to put the inventory on the
right, while the level (almost) fills the screen vertically. But you'd
need to create lots of new graphics.

P.S. My screen ist 1440x900, with 64x64 pixel tiles that would give
22.5x14 layout. So a 'widescreen layout' would be interesting here,
too. But I'm not sure how much space we really need for inventory +
clock.

best regards,
Erich Schubert
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