ZunTzu's roadmap

[sleevan]

I'm just wondering about the status of: 'Web site: Live service

Hi sleevan,
In May I had a problem with my laptop which made me take a temporary break from ZunTzu. Sometimes it's good to take a break.
At the moment I'm dedicating all my ZunTzu time to the Vista port. That's a lot of work. That's why the other features seem on hold.

Thanks for the update!

Best,

s

[Beren]

How is this great work going Jerome?

Any news?

[GJK]

Another request - I think I mentioned this before but as a reminder....

I'd like to see a yellow box or highlight of some sort around the dice that were just rolled. When you have a game that rolls a lot of dice to determine combat, you can easily lose track of which were just rolled and which weren't. I'd think that just a simple yellow box that appeared around any dice just rolled would work.

[radikal]

First off, excellent program. I've been trolling through the forum picking up tidbitts of info here and there and have managed to scrape together a game box for 1851 based on the art I used for a homebrew copy. Having pulled this together I have a few suggestions that would greatly enhance gameplay but I haven't run accross them in your roadmap nor discussed in the forum (in English anyway):

- A Calculator object: to help with the manipulation of money (or any other type of non simplistic counter).

Layout:
A rectangle consisting of four sections:
1. a title defined in the xml file
2. a numeric display
3. a set of buttons with the usual set of digits, +, -, /, *, = and clear functions
4. a dropdown button that lists all the other pooled instances in that group of calculator objects in play.

Attributes:
- name: object name for reference in other XML
- title: human readable name displayed on calculator
- type: open or fixed
1. open - this is what a typical calculator offers - you can punch in any formulas you want and evaluate the calculation
2. fixed - this type begins with a set numeric in the display (set via config) and doesn't allow clearing that amount. One can only put in a new number (less than or equal to the total currently in the calculator) and select another calculator from the drop down to send that amount to. Sending would cause that amount to be subtracted from this calculator and added to the other. A status message declaring the transaction would be displayed by default (or hidden based on 'private' attribute below).
- pooled: named group of calculators that participate in the dropdown that lists other instances in the same pool group (to include only those that money or other item counts should shuffle between)
- init: initial value calculator starts with (for example: starting money or number of off map air strikes available for the game)
- private: transactions are not announced in the status line

Usage:
Both types of calculators can be placed on any board or held in the hand.
Open calculators are good for planning financial transactions or calculating odds. They're also good for counting larger numbers (like last dividend)
Fixed calculators are good for use as a bank and as the money held by a player (hidden if calculator is held in the hand)

Benefit:
This eliminates all the paper or poker chip money manipulations which are tedious enough when real but beyond reasonable when it has to be done with a mouse.

I know I could use a spreadsheet configured for this sort of thing but the spreadsheet isn't shared which keeps it from being truly useful.

-Ron (RaDiKal on BGG)

[radikal]

I noticed ZunTsu did an update when I loaded it up last night. What changed?

[Jerome]

I noticed ZunTsu did an update when I loaded it up last night. What changed?

It was just to fix a bug with the loading of player hands containing terrains.
By the way, thanks for your suggestions!

[Beren]

For the PEBM utility it will be very useful to have a button that indicates the phase where you are in ceratin games, economic phase, reaction pahse, reinforcement phase, fire phase... etc... doing the creation of the gamebox you indicate the different phases and inside the game a simple button to change to the next phase

[GJK]

For the PEBM utility it will be very useful to have a button that indicates the phase where you are in ceratin games, economic phase, reaction pahse, reinforcement phase, fire phase... etc... doing the creation of the gamebox you indicate the different phases and inside the game a simple button to change to the next phase

That would be nice but if that were delayed or Jerome decided not to include that, I would make a turn record track and phase "marker" for each new gamebox that I make. Just make a multisided counter with each of the phases on it and rotate it so that the current phase is at the top. Short term-not-so-pretty solution.

[morval]

I'd like to reiterate the request to allow the width between stacked units either be adjustable by the gamebox creator, or adjustable by the players or hard-coded so that just a small edge of the counter below shows (so that you can at least tell that it's a stack).

Don't worry, it's already there: "Configurable perspective for stacks (direction, offset)"

Jerome, excuse my ignorance, but how do you do this? Could you point me to a Gamebox that does this?

Also in another thread somewhere, you were asked about transparency in tokens and you responded its doable, just need transparency mask. Could you elaberate on this a bit more. I'm good with Photoshop, but just didn't get what you were saying to do.

Thanks again,

Morval

[radikal]

I'd like to reiterate the request to allow the width between stacked units either be adjustable by the gamebox creator, or adjustable by the players or hard-coded so that just a small edge of the counter below shows (so that you can at least tell that it's a stack).

Don't worry, it's already there: "Configurable perspective for stacks (direction, offset)"

Jerome, excuse my ignorance, but how do you do this? Could you point me to a Gamebox that does this?

Also in another thread somewhere, you were asked about transparency in tokens and you responded its doable, just need transparency mask. Could you elaberate on this a bit more. I'm good with Photoshop, but just didn't get what you were saying to do.

Thanks again,

Morval

Jerome is referring to the roadmap, not the currently released version. He has committed to providing this feature in a future release (it's already there on the roadmap "High Priority" list).

[morval]

Don't worry, it's already there: "Configurable perspective for stacks (direction, offset)"

Jerome, excuse my ignorance, but how do you do this? Could you point me to a Gamebox that does this?

Also in another thread somewhere, you were asked about transparency in tokens and you responded its doable, just need transparency mask. Could you elaberate on this a bit more. I'm good with Photoshop, but just didn't get what you were saying to do.

Thanks again,

Morval

I just noticed that, darn it would have been nice

morval

Jerome is referring to the roadmap, not the currently released version. He has committed to providing this feature in a future release (it's already there on the roadmap "High Priority" list).

[morval]

Hi Jerome, I know you are busy with other useful things, but thought I'd list a few ideas I have been having. I also realize that some of these are in your Raodmap in one form or another, just thought I'd put a few of my ideas down before they are gone out of my head! Some might even be in ZT already? I'm new so still testing things out.

Snap to Tile
I already mentioned it, but thought I'd list it again. This would help placing tiles that need to go right next to each other. Helps tidy up the screen.

Micro Movements
This would be good for games like Settlers that create the map from a bunch of tiles. Then you could use the arrow keys to move the tile one pixel(?) at a time. to get things lined up nicely. Of course "Snap to Tile" would be better for thisl. Micro Movements might be good for miniature wargaming though.

Micro Rotate
More fine rotating would be good for miniature wargames that are free flowing.

Floating Boards
This would be good for discard piles, etc. They are tabs that instead are resizable and float above the main board. Similar to the Stack Inspector.

Card Hand Moved to the Side
Let the user decide where his card hand is displayed, top, bottom, left, or right. This could be useful for those of us with widescreen monitors. If you could put the hand to the left or right then you would get a little more vertical screen size back.

Right-Click (Context Sensitive)
Make the right-click a context sensitive button. This would be more useful for future expansion. Then all you have to do is right click a stack and then click shuffle, or delete, etc.

Zoom in/out shortcut would then need to be some other button or combination of buttons.

Thats all for now. If I get any more ideas I'll put them up here again!

Morval

[Beren]

Hi Jerome, any news from the PEBM tool?

[jimu]

Thank you for Zun Tzu. It's truly awesome!

FEATURE REQUEST: Map <TAB> key to return to last tab visited

Justification:

I'm implementing a space empire game that has player "fleet" counters on the main space map:


Each Fleet counter represents a fleet of spaceships. In addition to the main space map, each player has a hidden "Fleet Board" to track the spaceships and ordinance in each of his numbered fleets. Each "Fleet Board" looks like this:



Box 1 tracks the ships in fleet 1. Box 2 tracks the ships in fleet 2, etc...

When playing this game in real life, a player can just glance between the main map and his hidden fleet boxes. In zun tzu, we have to switch between the two boards by either a) clicking on two different tabs, or b) pressing ctrl+tab repeatedly until the desired board pops up. This is awkward; I'd like to able to rapidly switch between the two boards without being distracted by the Zun Tzu interface; I want to switch between the main map and the hidden fleet board with one key stroke.

Implementing this request delivers functionality similar to the "Viewports" request. It helps players to view information on two boards without taking up any additional screen real estate.

I suggest mapping the TAB key would be intuitive because this feature involves swapping TABs. I'd like to avoid using key modifiers like Ctrl/Alt/Shift.

Thank you for your consideration.

Jim

[TGov]

That is a cool idea Jim and would be helpful on several gameboxes.

I think something that would be a fantastic benefit to ZunTzu would be concealable units (ala Block Wargames and games like Bonaparte at Marengo), the way you can manipulate the counters and objects in ZunTzu would make it perfect. I created a Bonaparte at Marengo gamebox that works freaking great since you have to spin the units around in that game a lot, but without the ability to hide your units from your opponent, it is good for nothing more than playing solitaire. I understand the challenges behind this, but it would be amazing to be able to do that.