Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by daturkel 4460 days ago
Just wish I could see my current orientation! (Seriously though—from a given screen, I have no idea what the result of A is going to do or what the arrow keys are going to do. If i'm at a square and facing left, hitting the left arrow key will move me left, but if i'm facing any other direction, hitting left will rotate me. It's important that I know which way I'm facing.)
2 comments

Yeah, I thought about that problem quite a bit. I decided it's just gotta be one of the challenges to playing this thing, otherwise I'd have to cheat and use something more complex than a single pixel (or add some kind of transparent or blinking "cursor" in front of the player).
How about single-pixels-with-(8-bit-looking-)textures? A slight gradient darkening away from the "front" of the character would make all the difference.
This is exactly what I had had in mind for a solution. It's an aesthetic compromise but, in my opinion, a boon to gameplay.
I don't think it needs a solution, it's not hard to remember which direction you last moved.
It also could have used a way to "soft-tap" to change your direction without moving the character. Pretty cool though.