http://www.flowlab.io/game/play/1167868
@grazer
Working on a multiplayer game. Apparently dies of a seizure when you play.
Sometimes player check appears to work backwards
Flash is almost gone, but we still got flowlab!
Finally, it’s Friday and I have free time ahah. I’m an adult now, it’s weird lmao. Anyway, where do I start…
My Bug report for this update:
0.1 Clicking outside the window of a behavior block doesn’t close it and it’s not possible to interact with other blocks and “flowlines” while a window is open. This is new but I like it. Let’s keep it.
0.2 Better performance on the editor. “Not bad but not good either” performance when playing. And I am using a really bad laptop.
0.3 I’m not sure if this update messed up with physics and probably raycasting. Will give more details on this soon. Now, I need to get some rest.
0.4 Everything is way too big and way too zoomed in. Not sure if this is a resolution issue.
1. On my laptop, the sprite editor is off place and looks like this:
On chrome, the screen is 1360x768
Feedback / Just my opinion:
2. I liked the new color theme. But it has a strong contrast sometimes. Way too bright in some parts.
3. I really dislike the font used on the UI. It doesn’t fit. It lacks something.
4. The edit object menu is way too big.
I like how the “physics” menu is separated from the “properties”.
I like the “physics” layout but dislike the “properties” layout. It has too much blank space and looks unorganized.
A layout suggestion:
5. The “flow” lines look better. Simple and Readable. perfect.
6. Re-order layers. Background layer should be on the bottom. Could have simplified icons to represent each layer. (Like the old one).
7. Icons should be all with the same size and stroke. I’m not sure if this is a resolution issue.
And I think that’s it for now. Thank you grazer.
@grazer
In my game Rise on the html5 version if you stay in the menu screen for about 20 seconds or so the music stops. i checked it and its on repeat so i don’t know why its doing this. https://flowlab.io/game/play/1107855?v=html
Hey @PixelPizza, thanks for the thoughtful critique. Some things I completely agree with. Flipping the order of the layer buttons does make more sense. The Add to Level icon looks out of place, I’ll find a better one for that. I’ve spent a lot of time optimizing over the past couple of months, but I still have more to do - the performance is not quite where I want it to be yet.
I’m not sure that your edit object menu suggestion would work - it needs to have space for the “delete all” and “add to level” buttons when editing an object directly from the library. I’ve also been working towards making the editor more usable on mobile, and making some of the UI elements larger is part of that. It’s possible that I’ve gone too far in that direction, though.
I’m not sure I see the issue with the sprite editor - it should be pretty much the same as before, just with the new color scheme?
You and Latif both commented on the contrast - is your complaint with the button rollovers as well, or the blue highlight color?
I can continue to look at other font options as well, but my focus is on a balance of readability and compactness. The previous pixel font was very compact, but I got lots of complaints about readability, since it was so small.
@grazer
Other than random performance issues, HTML5 runs fairly smoothly.
The random issues that has occurred is that it sometimes lag with constant moving objects and crashing on rare occasions. After that though, seems to work great.
The light poles seem to lag sometimes right before they go off screen (in Game level).
I don’t know if this could be caused by a ground object or by spawning more of the same object.
DRIVE: http://flowlab.io/game/view/938307?v=html
I like the new design, kinda feel a bit more professional, but I like to ask if there could be an outline around the wires connecting the behaviors. In a game with Black & White colors, its a bit hard to see the wires and were they lead to.
About the object menu:
Yeah, I forgot about those buttons.
But I still think that the “behaviors” button needs some kind of highlight or something that makes it distinct from the others.
And I still think that the “Type” should be over the “Name” instead of side by side.
Sprite editor:
The only issue with it’s the “browse” button is overlapping the Color code and color preview.
Contrast:
The problem with the button color when the mouse it’s over it is how hard it is to read the text on the button and the difference between the previous color.
e.g.: In some buttons (Select Layer) it stays grey and the text remains white, which creates a bad contrast between both elements. Even when the changes to a darker color it still has a bad contrast and looks more “deselected” than “selected”. I hope that what I’m trying to say is understandable.
solution: A opt-in solution could be making the button darker instead of lighter when the mouse it’s over it.
e.g.2: The OK button turns grey and I think a darker blue would look better.
Looking at the Color scheme and UI of Discord could help since it’s similar.
Font:
There are a lot of vectorized fonts you could use. I just think that this new one seems dead since it looks a standard font.
I just deployed an update with a few tweaks:
-
New font - I agree that the previous font didn’t have much personality. I’ve switched to the DIN font, which I like a lot better. I’m curious to see what you guys think.
-
I reversed the order of the Layers select button, and fixed the highlight color of the buttons (being white on rollover was a bug)
-
Darkened the input/output label colors for behavior blocks slightly, so that the block names stand out a bit better
-
Tweaked the button icon (Behaviors, Delete All, Add to Level) settings to make them a bit more consistent
-
Fixed a problem with some dropdown lists getting truncated
-
Tweaked the button rollover color. Not sure if you guys will like this one any better, but it has more saturation, so it shouldn’t look “disabled” anymore, hopefully.
This doesn’t address all of the critisisms, but hopefully it’s a step in the right direction - leave your thoughts in the thread 
I hope I’m not being too picky or mean. Don’t bully me but I still don’t like the font.
Serif fonts don’t fit with the user interface. They are usually used for heavy text reading (Journals, Magazines, Blogs, etc.)
So these are a few suggestions:
(All of them are Sans Serif fonts and are from Google Fonts)
Raleway
<aref=“https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway”>https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway
Montserrat
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Montserrat
PT Sans
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/PT+Sans
Hey @PixelPizza - You aren’t being picky, or mean
You have a good eye for aesthetics, and are an experienced user, so I respect your opinion. I’m not sure I agree on the new font though. I didn’t like the previous one (Hind), but I feel like the new one is a much better fit. I’ve actually tried Raleway, and Monterserrat, and they are too wide to be a good fit - they stretch too far horizontally in most cases.
I also tried Ubuntu and Roboto, but for whatever reason the rendering just didn’t look that crisp.
Since you mentioned serifs, I’m wondering if there is actually a problem with the font rendering somewhere. What browser are you using? The font I’m using now is D-DIN, which should look like this:
https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/d-din
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_1451
- no serifs
Does that look like what you are seeing?
I think it looks much better.
Youve been gone for like 6 months of course you havent noticed lol
@grazer Everything got fixed, thanks for the updates!
I think I have the same problem as PixelPizza. The font doesn’t look like the font in your picture:
It looks like that on all browsers I have (chrome, firefox and edge), all latest version.
Same as Latif. Using chrome. It looks really good in the screenshot you posted.
Ok, the font rendering should be fixed now - @PixelPizza or @Latif or anyone else let me know if you have any other font issues. Thanks for letting me know it looked busted
@grazer when I play games right now when I click a game if the account is indie then the background is red and the game is all red I have already tried reloading the page.