ZunTzu's roadmap

Also, is there anything in the roadmap that is meant to serve as a "black bag" for chips or counters to be drawn from? As it is, I've got a game that has some double-sided counters that reveal what they are when in a stack, so the standard stack inspector method of shuffling doesn't work. A draw cup that shuffles after each pick from it, or add to it, and never reveals its contents details would be ideal. Perhaps a graphical object type that, when clicked, delivers a single draw. The image could be provided by the gamebox, perhaps with the option of a number being displayed that would report how many pieces were still in the cup, but only optionally, should some game need this sort of info.
Hedge-o-Matic wrote:
Also, is there anything in the roadmap that is meant to serve as a "black bag" for chips or counters to be drawn from?


That's a good idea.

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Jerome, ZunTzu developer. I just recently discovered ZunTzu and it's something I've always wanted, great work. I definitely plan to donate soon when I can. A few suggestions I have that would make it pretty much perfect to me, besides the other things on the roadmap.

First idea is a current player token/icon that attaches to player names. You can drag it onto another player name when it's their turn.

Second idea is small digital counters that dock onto player names, and the counters would be nameable. Hopefully unlimited counters but at least 2 would be nice. For example for tracking things like life, gold, victory points, etc.. Counters on the board would work too but being attached to the player names would make it so you could always see them.

Last idea is probably the most important. A magnifying glass that only the individual players can see. Something like you hold a hot key and then it shows whatever is under your mouse in real size. Probably an area of like 2 x 2 inches or so. This way you could leave the program view far out most of the game and players could also look around the board no matter who's turn it is.

Here's a quick photoshopped image of what I'm thinking about: http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/8344/features.jpg
My opinion about voice, and all the efforts you Jerome are putting in making it working with Vista.

I would invite you consider to drop it and focus on the game feature itself. The principle (that you as a developer know for sure well) is: don't reinvent the wheel.

There are *many* systems that allow to have vocal conferences; but there's no system designed to actually play a board game (move tokens, draw cards, roll dices, and all the rest) which works well like yours. Really, as I stated in another post I just had a game with Zuntzu and both me and my friend found, commenting in game and in the end, that the experience was really, really close to the one of the real game. We are *very* impressed by that.

And, we talked perfectly and with no problem despite he was running Vista.

Please take that into account. We could had the choice to replace skype with any other tool (there are literally plenty, free, and open source) but we can't realistically substitute Zuntzu with something else. The ONLY, and I underline only alternative that actually does exist is by far inferior to Zuntzu for what matter user experience.

So: please focus on improving the game!. For example, the dice bug in Vista we "discovered" curiousing with the box of battlelore (then I've read in the forum that is well known).

That is my "vote". I hope others would think the same and that you can agree at least to some extent.

Thanks again for this wonderful system in either case.

Regards,
capuani wrote:
I would invite you consider to drop it and focus on the game feature itself.


You're making sense. I'll consider it. Thanks.

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Jerome, ZunTzu developer. I completely agree with Capuani, I haven't even tried to use the voice system because the walk a rounds are so easy. My brother has the same phone service as I do and we actually just played a game using our cell phones. But you have skype, and even webcams that can do the voices.

If you are set on getting a voice service, power to you, but I haven't seen a big leap in Zuntzu's capabilities for quite some time now, and a stagnant website is a dead website.

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Redcap wrote:
I completely agree with Capuani, I haven't even tried to use the voice system because the walk a rounds are so easy. My brother has the same phone service as I do and we actually just played a game using our cell phones. But you have skype, and even webcams that can do the voices.

If you are set on getting a voice service, power to you, but I haven't seen a big leap in Zuntzu's capabilities for quite some time now, and a stagnant website is a dead website.


Same here, the people I play with don't even try using the voice feature. We just use the phone call feature in Google Talk, it is a lot easier.
I agree, drop the Voice feature...
I think the most important step is the Live Service,
that missing is the only disadvante I can see compared to vassal.

Please, i need it Smile
Can't find anyone to play with me Sad

But as another feature i would recommend is something like a multiplayer pointer.
I press a specific key/combination (which i leave up to you Wink ) and click somewhere on the map and all other playes can see a sign/circle where i clicked. This could be advanced to other tabs where the tab then blinks or something like this.
jacky wrote:
I agree, drop the Voice feature...
I think the most important step is the Live Service,
that missing is the only disadvante I can see compared to vassal.


Couldn't agree more. I've been waiting for this feature for over a year. If game seekers could find each other in real time directly on this site, I think zuntzu would really take off.
This was posted over a week ago in another folder and has yet to get a reply. I thought I would add it here. ZunTzu is my favorite game playing tool. It is so simple to create game boxes that even I can do it. I am just hoping that it will continue to be developed.

"Hi Jerome. First off, this is not a complaint from some demanding user.

I haven't been around in awhile and thougt I'd check back to see how things are going.

Just wondering if you are still developing this excellent program. We really really need something like this. With a few additions I could start using this for miniatures gaming and would love it!

The roadmap hasn't been updated for a litle over 11 months. I'm hoping patiently that you haven't given up. The Design Tool you were working on would be awesome as well! Smile

I've looked around and just haven't found anything that does what I want. MapTools is great for RPGs, but doesn't have stacking for board games, etc. Battlegrounds is also great, but until he starts developing his Wargame version it just won't do what I need. I've tried Vassal, but all I get is more confussed. Smile

ZunTzu also needs a few additions before I can really start using it, but I don't think its that far away from being the perfect program!

Thanks,

Konrad"
Hi Jerome, any news from the PEBM utility?
I love Zun Tzu, but wonder if it's still a live project or not. Although I don't have any real ability to donate at the moment, I'm wondering if there's any way for the community members to contribute to the project to keep it moving forward. Not so much like in an open source sort of way, since I know you want to keep control, Jerome, but perhaps with other aspects, such as graphic design, writing and documentation, or other aspects of keeping Zun Tzu moving forward.

Thanks for all your effort, Jerome! Let's try to make 2010 a banner year for Zun Tzu and the community!
Hedge-o-Matic wrote:
I love Zun Tzu, but wonder if it's still a live project or not. Although I don't have any real ability to donate at the moment, I'm wondering if there's any way for the community members to contribute to the project to keep it moving forward. Not so much like in an open source sort of way, since I know you want to keep control, Jerome, but perhaps with other aspects, such as graphic design, writing and documentation, or other aspects of keeping Zun Tzu moving forward.

Thanks for all your effort, Jerome! Let's try to make 2010 a banner year for Zun Tzu and the community!


As a matter of fact, I'm starting the design of ZunTzu 2 right now! Smile
It will be an open source project, although I'm not sure about the exact license.

I've just created a ZunTzu 2.0 forum where you can contribute and discuss design ideas.

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Jerome, ZunTzu developer. Will it be still the same technology, meaning only Win32 plateform will be supported?
sebastien wrote:
Will it be still the same technology, meaning only Win32 plateform will be supported?


It will use Silverlight 4, a different technology.
It means ZunTzu 2 will work on Windows and Mac, and probably even Linux later on.

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Jerome, ZunTzu developer.