Different symbols for difficulty rating

[michalove]

I think we should have a different symbol for the various difficulty ratings. Stars are good for the "fun"-rating. How about skulls for the difficulty?

That would also help to differentiate between the two rating types.

[michalove]

I made a quick sketch. What do you think?

I uploaded the .svg to rawimages/menu/skulls.svg

[Germanunkol]

Tried them: Somehow I find them frightening :D. I can't think of anything that fits better, though.

I thought for both the stars and the skulls that they're a bit large (especially in vertical direction) - the rating takes up such a large part of the screen. But we don't really need more space, so maybe it's all right.

It looks good: Only thing I'm a little concerned with: I think the inactive skulls are too bright, it makes them look like ghosts. Maybe we could use the same colours as for the inactive stars? I think this looks better, color-wise. The problem is that now it's much harder to see the difference between "active" and "inactive". Any thoughts?

[michalove]

We should definitely make the stars and skulls a little smaller so that they don't take so much space.

I it also a good idea to find a different icon than a skull. I will brainstorm a bit.

The color change that you suggested is very good. I wasn't totally away of the actual background color. The inactive objects should definitely have this color.

[Germanunkol]

I tried smaller star sizes. What do you think?

I still don't know about the skulls: I don't really mind them. They look nice, it was just a little... different, I guess. But I don't know what else to use. Maybe a shuriken.

[michalove]

Here are two more possible objects: Shuriken Or alternatively, red stars

I committed both of the images in the rawimages/menu folder. Feel free to try them ingame. The new, smaller size is find and still well readable.

[Germanunkol]

Tried the two. Also tried smaller skulls.

They are all nice, but I'm not 100% happy with any of them: Too intense in my opinion. Also, stars always seemed like something positive. "Difficulty" may be positive in this case (for advanced players), but usually it's something negative.

Cool, but very hard to read, especially with the shaodow....

My favourite so far. Although it's also a little hard to read when the images are this small...

What do you think?

[michalove]

I asked a friend. He said the skull is most clear. Let me experiment with the color, though. At the moment, the contrast between active and passive is not super strong. I will either make the fill color of the skull plain-white or make the whole skull in a darker color.

Also a silly idea: How about we use stupid cone-shaped party hats as the symbol for fun? Plus confetti.

[Germanunkol]

I don't know about party-hats. It's a neat idea, but doesn't fit with the Asian style, I think. We could try it though, and see how it looks. But I like the stars - they're very simply to read and convey their meaning clearly. I'm also starting to like the skulls more and more, the more I look at it, but yes, the colours need work. If you make me some hats and different coloured skulls I'll try them. Or you could just overwrite the images and if we like a previous version more, git can always revert to an earlier version.

[michalove]

I scrapped the party hat idea. Stars are perfectly fine.

I made the skull white. For me that works fine now. They have a nice contrast from the background.

[Germanunkol]

Yes, this looks great!

[michalove]

Nice. There are two small things before we are done: Could you please

• adjust the column width in the list
• put the skulls also into the rating screen after the level.

After that, we are done here.