Monday, February 18, 2013

Gridiron Solitaire #43: Finishing the Offseason

Well, almost.

Funny thing about hockey tournaments when you leave early Friday and come back late Sunday: they kill your productivity. Plus you're exhausted the first day that you're back (today). Eli 11.6 was unbelievable (34 saves in 35 shots, save percentage of .971), but the tournament schedule is just killing me. I just walk around exhausted all the time, basically.

Whatever. So I've slowed down, but the new offseason is past the 80% mark, at least, as I've gotten to the point where the card outcome is revealed. So the basic principle is that instead of showing the cards one at a time, I'll show the purchased card set, then reveal boom/bust one card at a time.

The reason I'm showing all the cards instead of making them visible one at a time (the original version) is because the cards are individualized now with names. So you'll see a card that's third or fourth in the lineup, for example, and maybe it's the card most important to your style of play, and your anticipation is going to rise each time as the reveal gets closer to that card. It's a little thing, but it builds just a bit more anticipation.

Here's a screenshot of the near-final card purchase screen:


If you click on that image to enlarge, you can see all the detail that Fredrik's put into the art. The accountant, in particular, just cracks me up. I'm going to have the football removed from the background image, because it fouls up the focal point of the image, but that little accountant has a ton of personality, and I think I might ask Fredrik to add a little trophy on his desk (for kickball, probably). Since the only thing that really matters in the accountant image is the team budget info, the image itself is open to lots of humor.

There's still going to be one significant change to the image. There's going to be a "telethon pledge"-type board replacing those bland team budget labels and total. And it's really going to pop, so your attention will naturally be drawn there. Plus, there's going to be a blue strip running from the left edge of the accountant image, and the accountant will get a name strip, just like the player cards.

There's an open question about the far right side of the screen. I want the cards as large as possible, but unless I want the buttons in the grass, they'll run into the logo if I place them any farther to the right (and I like the size of the logo, so I'd rather not shrink it).

The process that each screen goes through is so meticulous that sometimes it seems silly. But then, at some point, I look at the screen and I know that it's right. This isn't far from being right, but it's not quite there yet. Still.

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