Unity campaigns and how to select them - "CAMPAIGN_LIST"

[Stratego (dev)]

Similar topic as "Unity map lists and how to select them - campaign maps"

but now for the campaigns themselves

here also not sure i want a simple list of campaign names.

any suggestions?

i have not really remember any games having more campaigns so - it wil lbe unique

or it can help if u know games with man campaigns and how they solved the selection - thanks!

daniel

[Stratego (dev)]

i just found one, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, the game itself seems list old AOK so maybe i will try to play

[Stratego (dev)]

another one

[Stratego (dev)]

[Stratego (dev)]

I have a few ideas based on what we have in games

- we have many campaigns
- we have many independent maps
- we should categorize/group them somehow

idea for structure
- tutorial maps
- Scenarios
-- Historical maps (In AOS, AOW)
-- FAN maps
-- My maps (from mapeditor)
- campaigns
-- historical campaigns (In AOS, AOW)
-- Hungarian history maps (in AOS)
-- post ww2 maps (AOW)
-- alternative ww2 outcome maps (AOW)
-- easy campaigns
-- moderate campaigns
-- hard campaigns

all above sub groups will be defined in json, and they can reference each other for a tree structure.

[Stratego (dev)]

ok as visuality:
now i have these building blocks (bottom to up)
1. map list view (the maps of a campaign): little things here and there on a background with text and stars.
2. campaigns view: here all campaigns listed in a box with name and with a flavour-image (it hought the boxed could be of a right-left scrollable)
what is needed
3. the campaign groups view: here the tree structure of campaigns (previous post) will be shown
IDEA1: - for this i thought maybe only a textual "menu" like
Campaigns:
-- historical campaigns (8) --------------------------------------- (In AOS, AOW)
-- Hungarian history maps (2) -------------------------------- (in AOS)
-- post ww2 maps (3) ---------------------------------------------- (AOW)
-- alternative ww2 outcome maps (6) ------------------------------ (AOW)
-- easy campaigns (3)
-- moderate campaigns (5)
-- hard campaigns (7)

the numbers are the number of campigns inside.
IDEA2: what about combining this groups on the "campaigns view"?
I ould put textual "links" like they were "tabs" to "filter" which campaign group to show, like:
"historical campaigns (8) - Hungarian history maps (4) - post ww2 maps (5) - alternative ww2 outcome maps (2) - easy campaigns (3) - moderate campaigns (2)"
maybe this one can be short in space... not sure.


what do u think of this "campaign groups view" ideas?

[makazuwr32]

I'd say idea 1 is better.
Especially if that will allow for us to add other categories.

[Stratego (dev)]

sorry maybe i was not so clear, both version will let add any categories.

[makazuwr32]

Good.
I am just slowly working on my campain and as i mentioned many times already it will have quite a good amount of maps with various difficulty — from story telling interludes which you do not have any chance to loose at all to "Nightmare_is_easier_than_this" difficulty where you might loose over and over and over and over again.

And because it will nto fit to normal campains categorisation easy/normal/hard.

[Stratego (dev)]

i suggest planning it to be more campaigns - even interconnected ones

more than about 10 maps will not be good in a campaign in any view.

[makazuwr32]

I can divide campain into several smaller ones but the thing is that it will still be a one big story.

[Endru1241]

Feedback from working app:
I assume there will be possibility to assign icon for specific campaign (instead of mountain image). Is that right?

Horizontal list is imho worse that vertical one.
Even on landscape screen it wastes much space.
Big grid could be nicer ( adding more lines to fit the screen ) or just increase in campaign button size.

[Stratego (dev)]

I assume there will be possibility to assign icon for specific campaign (instead of mountain image). Is that right?

sure, if this will be the look - this is just a RANDOM idea, i just made it to make everyone's brain start thingink how it would look good

hoirizontal list: ok! which is more preferred?
a) taller buttons (eg rectangle shapes)?
b) multiple lines or even grid of them
c) some totally different look

[Endru1241]

I'd opt for really big icons in grid.
Probably square icons are better, but not sure.
Depends on how many lines would fit the screen, but I think rectangles could be wider in such case.
Generally I think you could try grid constructed as 3 columns x5 rows in portrait (or 5x3 in landscape) or something.

Unless some better idea comes.

[Stratego (dev)]

actually my thought was in general campaigns are "few" as u see we already categorized them that is why i thought to have 3-4 -6 campaigns in a view they are definitely good to be horizontal (even with bigger boundrectangle)

so if we thing if having grid is thinging of many many campaigns - but that is extreme having that many imho.

eg. in other games sometimes there only ONE camaign! and in some other games there is max 6 campaigns top, that is why they show it this way.
with categorization of campaigns we also can have onyl a few in a view 6, 8 or 10 maximum.

so i am not sure atm.

[Endru1241]

Then 2x3 or 2x4 grid.

Horizontal list removes any possibility to comfortably use menu in portrait mode.

Even current view would suffice if list was horizontal on landscape and vertical on portrait.

My main point here is have an overview of large campaign buttons, because it seems to me to be the direction menu is going for.
Like those, but with undefined number of campaigns:

[Stratego (dev)]

portrait mode will/can use different alignment, surely.
large buttons: yes, but with increasing "button" size we need bigger and nicer graphics

and you see? you posted examples from games that possibly have these few campaigns in a view (or totally in their games), not 16 campaigns ina single view (that we have in hard campaigns currently as i remember)