GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 664981
Review and update artwork
Last modified: 2014-04-17 04:44:21 UTC
Review and update the artwork and make sure it is modern and consistent with the other GNOME Games.
I would like to update the graphics of this project.
Great Jonah. Please post the graphics into this bug report and feel free to ask questions.
What format works best for you guys.
PNG is good for mock-ups, svg for the final graphics.
Created attachment 203633 [details] Image concept
Hi Jonah. Great start! Some feedback: - Think about the resolution that these images will be shown at - for example the mine could be very small on a large map and detail wont be visible / will make it hard to see. - Make sure to think about the whole application and not just the current way it is laid out. In particular I'm interested in how the grid looks (the current button style could be improved). I think this is what the blue square is in the concept? - The face is quite fun, but also an oddly placed new game button (and was copied off the old Window 95 era minesweeper) - consider if it could be improved/changed or if it's still appropriate today. - Don't feel you have to change all the current images - if some or all of the icons are still current then add to them / modify them if necessary. (noted because the concept shows the same style icons as the current design). Thanks!
Actualy I am starting to think if there is some way to create themes. Like in win7 you can choose the mines or flowers. They removed the face in their's as well. I noticed in KDe it has no face too. So maybe it is obsolete? I know some ppl like the face. So that is why I was thinking themes. A classic theme, blue, green and so forth. I will try to graphic up what I am saying.
Created attachment 203712 [details] concept2 for minesweeper
This is playing off of the theme concept for Mines. I have also thought that the smile can be replaced with a penguin or other mascots that are okay to use. Try and make it fun for the user to play around on.
Note that the statusbar was removed recently, see bug 664953.
Created attachment 203837 [details] Grid square difference I think that the mines should start out with bigger sized squares. I took a comparison between mines and Kmines.With screens getting bigger and systems being used on touch interfaces the bigger square would be better suited.
Created attachment 204045 [details] New graphics in game So i loaded my smile face, mines and explosion into the game to see how it looks. I still recommend a bigger square grid when the game starts out.
I know I'm as biased as they get ( http://rahga.com/svg/ ), I don't think the flags nor mines need updating. Since things looked pretty bad in '04, we tried to make them future proof and instantly recognizable. Now, the explosion Callum did, but I've always thought it looked like a spark with a rotated smiley face. Not that I could think of a better option... my proposal was a big red X over the mine. If you do replace, don't forget that there's a optional "?" flag.
As noted in bug 112571 the contrast can be bad in some themes, and a redesign needs to take this into account. I agree with Richard here, that there isn't a pressing need to change the current images but there is a need to reconsider other aspects of the layout as the above bug shows. If we do add new themes those can be added to the existing images. (if there is a proposal to change the images that's OK too but they need to be significantly better in some way for them to be accepted).
There's some new concepts for artwork here: https://raw.github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/games/mines/mines2.png I've gone for something that is somewhat abstract. This should make it easier to scale the UI and incorporate animations. The latter are hard to capture in a static mockup, but I think are quite essential here.
I've recently updated the Mines mockups: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/master/games/mines/mines2-new.png Here's some initial changes that we can make for the visual styling: * Update the icons (I'll provide this). * Reduce the size of the numbers. * Change the button and background colours (if you point me to where these are set, I'll see what I can do here). * Increase the padding between the grid cells. * Change to use the dark theme variant.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 710616 ***