Room: MainRoom

[TheProgrammingDuck]

This is the current version, let me know if anyone wants any changes. In the past I asked whether we want to have the Cafe in there as well but we chose not to have it. The room does feel a bit big and there's definitely space to add it in if we want to.

[Brookke]

hmm we need to be careful, is this room having an NPC? if yes then we need to make sure its not too big otherwise finding clues will be hard

[jasonmash]

Looking good!

Got a few comments:

• Should we have the cafe/shop in this room? I think we do need it
• Arrangement of chairs/tables is strange, can we adjust them to closer match the actual RCH?
• Not sure about the triangular shape of the porter's area, it's flatter in real life (although accuracy isn't important)

[joeShuff]

Looks good, again, few comments:

• Tables are good but I think they should be heavily concentrated around the kitchen area, like in actual RCH
• I think you have way too many doors/entrances here. There should be
  • To Island of Interaction (top)
  • To Porters (in the circle)
  • To Kitchen (right side)
  • To 037 (Bottom Right)
  • To Toilets (next to 037)
  • To Outside, (bottom).
  • To the upstairs outside 037 (to the left of the door to outside) After listing them, you have the right amount, but they aren't in the right place. Think about where the doors are for them in the actual RCH
• The sofas etc seem very randomly placed. It looks untidy. Can fix that at a later date but keep them grouped. Red sofas together then the tables going dotted up to the top aswell
• I'm fine with the windows, without them you'd have a pretty large wall to fill with stuffs so thats fine.
• We might have to reduce the size of it as @Brookke said it's quite large. My idea would be where the porters thing is. It doesnt go back around so maybe we could cut it straight up from the porters place. If you don't understand I will do a mock up of it.

[TheProgrammingDuck]

Wouldn't the Kitchen be at the top and the staircase to the island of interaction be in the top left (past the porters office)?

[joeShuff]

No? The kitchen is on the right. The island of interaction will be at the top right. Also, we do need to slim this room down.

[Brookke]

hmm? @joeShuff if the north wall is where the shops etc are then the interactive island stair case is top left. If we slim it down too much we have the issue where the doors will all be too close together. This room should be the biggest room in the building right?

[joeShuff]

I really think we have different ideas on what orientation this room is.

[Brookke]

yeah so the bit that is cut out is the porters office area, (where interactive island is above) then the top left is the bit where you can walk out of the rch towards cs (not implemented in the game). thats how the whole game has been designed from that angle

[joeShuff]

That is not the orientation I looked at it.

and this orientation is the basis of what side the doors go on in all the other rooms

[joeShuff]

In the outside, the door to RCH is at the top, so why is the entrance on the right of this map?

[Brookke]

the entrance is at the bottom right?

[Brookke]

hmm so RCH37 is hard to do the orientation that it would actually be

[joeShuff]

I thought the entrance would be bottom centre. I think we are looking into it as if we are in the sky above the 66 stop.

[TheProgrammingDuck]

Yeah, I was looking at it from the orientation that Brooke mentioned. The door at the bottom leads to the outside, the stairs on the right will lead to the computer room upstairs, the 2 doors on the right will lead to rch037 and the toilet, the kitchen is accessed through the door at the top (this is where the Cafe would be) , porters office door is outside the porters office and the island of interaction stairs are on the top left (in real life you could also go straight, leave the rhc and see the computer science department right in front of you)

[joeShuff]

Then we would need to change the orientation of every room.

[joeShuff]

Because if you've got RCH037 on the right, but it comes out from the top, doesn't make sense

[Brookke]

[joeShuff]

That is not what I thought. I thought 90 degerees off. But thats what I've based all my orientation requests on

[Brookke]

I think we should leave it as it is for now as orientation is very hard to do right, hence why Pokémon only really had it so that you enter a room from the bottom

[Brookke]

[joeShuff]

It's not difficult at all to do right. Miscommunication as led to it being done wrong. I swear I even drew out the main room in detail...

[Brookke]

it is difficult to do because we then require loads more assets to rotate all the rooms and desks etc

[joeShuff]

Its not. This is the only room where the orientation is incorrect in my eyes. Its easy to fix. Just using those rugs & doors we have. I dont get how the miscommunication happened. I clearly stated my ideas and everyone agreed.

[Brookke]

the island of interaction is wrong then, as is the outside bit, as is the kitchen

[joeShuff]

Yeah, if your orientation is used. That's what i'm saying.

[Brookke]

no they are all right

[TheProgrammingDuck]

If you ever drew out the main room, I don't have a copy of this and it must have happened quite a while ago because I don't have any recollection of it having occurred. I am in agreement with Brooke in this, this orientation feels most natural and based on the asssets we have, this orientation makes the room designs look most natural.

[joeShuff]

They're really not. I drew this out ages ago. If it feels natural then how come it hasn't come to me naturally. You 2 made it so your say is biased. I had no part in its making and I didnt get it naturally.

[Brookke]

I originally drew the first room (the one we have been using in the game test) the other way round (180 degree rotation), but then saw this and worked from this.

[Brookke]

[Brookke]

that is roughly the orientation we have

[TheProgrammingDuck]

Yup, based on this I totally see where Joe was coming from in terms of the outside but the rest of the rooms are correct in terms of both orientation and general accuracy of content.

[Brookke]

you can rotate 90 degrees clockwise and it'll still mostly work,as long as interactive island gets the same treatment

[Brookke]

I don't have any objection to it being rotated as long as I don't have to do it

[Brookke]

new orientation suggestion

[TheProgrammingDuck]

Haha, I don't mind doing it...I simply don't see the point. If the team agrees that it should be rotated then I'll do it even if I completely disagree with it but we should definitely wait for more opinions before deciding. Making the new orientation actually look nice will be a tiresome task.

[joeShuff]

I mean its obviously not as dramatic as completely flipping it.

[Brookke]

Honestly @joeShuff I would just give it a go on tiled and see how it goes. I am sure it'll work and thats fine I just cba with remaking the map

[Brookke]

it will work and it is possible, but It doesn't make it any clearer other than with the RCH037 room and maybe the lake house

[joeShuff]

[joeShuff]

This was how I saw it.

[Brookke]

Yeah I understand that, and that way is fine, give it a go on tiled and make it happen. It makes sense for the rooms like 37 and that because then they will be the right way round, however I don't think it matters too much really.

[Brookke]

Will any rooms other than this and interactive island need to be re done? (except for the movement of the doors obviously)

[TheProgrammingDuck]

Ah, that makes sense now. Joe, if you think the orientation difference is that significant then I'll work on this now and get it all sorted with the new orientation by tonight/tomorrow. (Busy packing bags today for my flight tomorrow).

[Brookke]

@TheProgrammingDuck as I have said to you I would recommend that @joeShuff works on it because he knows exactly how he thinks it should look and it will save time, you can work on the main menu and get that done then.

[jasonmash]

See #32 for further discussion as other rooms are involved

[joeShuff]

Having a few issues with corners of walls but other than that its getting there. Thoughts?

[joeShuff]

I asked some peers (people in SEPR) which was more understanding. I.e I told them both were RCH and nothing else. All said the one I have made is more natural to understand. The first one is too far off that it becomes unrecognizable.

[jasonmash]

I wonder if part of that feedback was to do with the better layout of chairs/tables and the reception desk that wasn't on the other map. The better layout adds more recognisable features from the RCH, and I think you'd find that if you added that layout to the other orientation you'd get the same feedback.

Not sure about the strange shape of the island of interaction/porters office area, and also it probs takes up too much space relative to the area taken up by the seating section of the RCH. Not really a problem though, if it's okay with everyone, let's go ahead and use your current version as it's good enough for the game.

[Brookke]

Yeah the two things I would probably look at changing is the door at the top right to stairs or at least remove the exit sign (that implies as its the main room that that is the exit. I would probably move the entrance to the bottom left more i.e. before the stairs ( currently it kinda looks like the entrance to 037 as that too has double doors.