Re: [Enigma-devel] New image for it_extralife

[Ronald Lamprecht]

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback on this list and by email.

I did not want to take premature influence on this discussion in the 
hope of more and better alternative suggestions this way.

We did post this request to the list as we did not find a common 
aggreement on internal discussions in advance. But the opinions in this 
open discussion did neither deliver a clear favorite with a broad 
acceptance.

But we learned that some icons like the smiley emoticon are meanwhile 
overused and too strongly connected to bad experiences and others like 
the ankh are not well known enough for such a common item like the 
extralife.

We did suggest the yellow item basis because it fits on all existing 
floors, provides an usable background to simple black and flat symbols, 
and the round shape has at least some connection to the ball actors. The 
strong yellow color has been criticised by several people. Even though 
the heavy extralife usage in the supplied screenshot is quite unusual, 
the extralife image should not distract users. Thus I started searching 
for more decent images that nevertheless have a good contrast to all floors.

The 2.5-d-effects of the yellow disc are intentional. Enigma has been 
criticised for outdated images. Indeed many of the item images have been 
low resolution and flat and did not fit the much more elaborated actor, 
stone and floor images. We started improving the simple item images and 
more items will show effects like the cherry, bannana.

Thus we are not fond of a flat red heart symbol, especially not of one 
with +1 on top. Actually we do not favor a heart as it overused in cheap 
ego shooter games with a lot of blood shed. Our marbles do shatter 
without blood shed.

This leads us to the examination of the basic demands of an Enigma 
object image. What is more important, the visual representation or the 
symbolic connection to the object? Well, actually we never received a 
single request or criticism about the cherry being used as an item that 
makes marbles invisible. Just the spoon did once cause a request, 
because it is a local symbol of death just known to native German 
speakers. In fact it is one of the nice challenges of Enigma to 
investigate the features of yet unknown objects by playing and testing. 
So the visual representation is much more important and we should feel 
free to choose any image we like as long it is well recognizable.

What makes an image recognizable? Simplicity! A simple shape with smooth 
color transistions. We did experiment with a flat shamrock image. The 
shape has been much too complex and the monochrom color caused contrast 
problems on many floors. The complex shapes of an asclepius symbol and 
other suggestions are not well suited for lower resolutions, too.

Let us look at the extralife features. We have *one* item that 
resurrects shattered black and white marbles and pearls. The same item 
is the currency for a cannonball spitting stone and transforms to 
glasses on laser light.

Thus the old black extralife is either way not well suited for all 
actors. Ray did suggest to introduce extralife variants for the 
different actors and players using black and white extralifes. But we 
want a clear separtion of black/white color for colored actors and 
yin/yang for player related features. And the transformation and the 
spitter usage do not make the extralife a candidate for variants.

Concerning the spitter we do interpret the extralife as a "currency" 
that drives the spitter and not as the cannonballs themselves. Neither 
the old image nor any suggestion do symbolize the laser transformation 
of an extralife.

Under these preconditions I searched for a free usable icon and made a 
find with the battery image:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battery.svg

It is well recognizable and usable even in 16x16 pixel based resolution. 
 It fits best to all existing floors and is very decent. Let us assume 
that the marbles and the spitters are driven by electrical power and the 
battery will symbolize these two usages.

Maybe somedays a graphics wizard joins this project and is able and 
willing to provide an even better image. Then we can switch the imgage 
again. But unless this event occurs we should take the battery and will 
thus be free to introduce black pearl actors.

Greets,

Ronald