Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.

The more I work with the beta of Elemental the more I think we need to integrate info cards into it.  Those of you who have played Sins of a Solar Empire know what info cards are. They are one of the major game UI innovations that Ironclad has introduced to the genre.

The idea is that when you mouse over something, a “card” appears on the screen that gives detailed information about it. They’re kind of like super tooltips.

Well, for Elemental, that’s what we’re looking to do too. In this case, I’m thinking we should have them look like cards:

image

So the idea is that you could have your units on screen, mouse over them and see the card. Same for improvements in cities, artifacts, etc. It means a lot less click click click. 

It also gives another opportunity for players to customize something that has a practical use because they could, when designing units, have some control over the info card and thus be able to make distinctive cards for units they want to be able to recognize at a glance.


Comments (Page 2)
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on Oct 05, 2009

Great idea!!! 

on Oct 05, 2009

+1 on putting Chuck Norris into the game... Wait what was the original suggestion...?

on Oct 05, 2009

Thrawn2787

The idea sounds great by the way. I love Sins' cards, and since Elemental is supposed to have some trading card style to it (ingame) this will fit right in!

"If you have any Stardock employees in your hand you may sacrifice them to play Frogboy"... how barbaric!

on Oct 05, 2009

The first thing the thread title made me think of was lamperti's thread about movement and right-clicking. I'd prefer to see MouseOver events yield just a simple text label, and avoiding an involved MouseOver pop-up like that seems like it might also help with support for 'low end' hardware.

on Oct 05, 2009

Displaying all the units and spells as cards would be awesome. Even though the graphics were basic and rudimentary, Master of Magic did the whole card thing quite well and made it feel like you were playing a mix of Magic: The Gathering.

on Oct 05, 2009

Yes, please.

on Oct 05, 2009

What are you talking about? Nothing owns Chuck Norris.

No, not even Nothing owns Chuck Norris.

on Oct 05, 2009

Yes these "super tool tips" are awesome!

on Oct 05, 2009

If you mean the nothing from Never ending story... don't get me started. That movie was horrible!


Nothing happened... litterally!

 

I feel like these guys when I say that!

on Oct 05, 2009

Indeed, you can't even Google Chuck Norris.

on Oct 06, 2009

Awesome. I'd take Chuck Norris as a hero. His class would be Ranger.

on Oct 06, 2009

Frogboy, you just epic failed for posting a Chuck Noris card that is beatable(in around 10 turns with the right cards, I can explain how if anyone really cares).

Have to agree with what others are saying though: cards are a great idea.

on Oct 06, 2009

Sounds like a very interesting and useful idea. Anything to make the game more accessible, something the TBS games usually are not.

on Oct 06, 2009

Great idea and especially great voor a TBS fantasy game. Bring 'em on those cards!

on Oct 06, 2009

I love the idea of info cards in Elemental and the idea of creating my own card description for units I design. Make it so Frogboy.

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