A sneak peek at the new turn summary

This week saw some good progress on the new game summary system. In some ways it represents a fundamental change in the way turns a processed and has me looking at code that has been untouched a quite some time. To deal with the changes I will be branching the code. What is on the site now is version 1. Version 2 will use the new summary system and include some other improvements I am taking the opportunity to throw in.

At some point in the coming week all new games created will be version 2. Games created up to that point will be version 1.

So what is this new game summary/messaging system you keep talking about?

In version 1 the turn summary is shown per plane, per turn. During the game players can only see those portions of the summary directed at their planes. This means that some information that should be seen by everyone in the game, such as one plane shooting another, is only shown to the players involved. It also means that essentially the same information is written out twice.

In version 2 my aim has been to add visibility and clarity to the turn summary.

First off the turn summary is shown to all players in the game. So even if you are not engaged in an exchange of fire the you can see who was, how they rolled and the number of damage chits applied. The actual damage assigned and some other effects are still secret and this secrecy is still preserved until the game is over – only the player concerned can see the secret information.

I have added a graphic component to the turn summary to go along with the text. This should make it easier to recognise which plane or planes are being talked about.

The turn summary is shown in its own window that sits over the game interface. The summary window can be dragged to a convenient place, minimised or hidden. This is the first step in moving the functionality of the game up into the game board rather than having it in the tabbed interface underneath.

Finally the turn summary from the last completed turn will be shown during the current, incomplete turn. So no more having to step back to the last turn to see what happened when planning your next move.